additional paternity leave - at last!

ultrawomble

ninky wrote: »

the link is saying precisely that. the man can only get the leave if the woman returns to work and forgoes taking her additional maternity leave (therefore allowing him to take it instead). if the woman isn't working at all then she doesn't have any additional maternity leave to swap. or do you think sahms should be paid smp?

My bad you are correct.

ninky_2

bugslet wrote: »

As it happens amongst the 20+ employees I have, apart form myself, there is only one other woman - you don't get many lady truckers, so we are a very 'male' business.

I can't say I'm that fussed, I reckon most of my drivers would have preferred to stay working overall than be at home. And I know that bar one of them, they earn a higher wage than their wives/partners, so I think the financial motivation would be for them to keep working.

Having said that, it does cause us disruption when someone is off for a long time. We are a highly specialised business and I have yet to hire anyone with the specific job requirements we have, so training costs are inevitable. There certainly is a cost implication and anything that costs at the moment is something you seek to limit.

men don't always wear the trousers in relationships however. if their wife / partner is getting really fed up with being at home it may well be she suggests it's time for him to pull his weight on the childcare front. i reckon once one person does it the others are more likely to follow. being the first man in a group of blokey truckers to take paternity leave might require a degree of bravery.

ninky_2

ILW wrote: »

And many are now getting around it by using agency staff instead of employees or giving zero hours contracts. I think more will start usining these methods as the legislation gets more onerous. Unintended consequenses. and it does tend to be the more lowly jobs that suffer.

well businesses that go down this route are likely to suffer longterm. women have been suffering from this stuff for years - with employers often favouring men for permanent key roles. more lowly jobs have also been suffering for years. it's very rare to find a cleaner on the payroll these days.

bugslet

Could be right ninky, but as I said we are a small firm and we know eah other pretty well. Most drivers don't even want to do a job where they are confined to one place, that's why they take up driving in the first place and if you do Europe and Scandanavia as we do, the wish to be on the road is pretty strong. Some people grow out of it, some don't.

I'm certainly sorry I gave up being on the road and expanded the firm, much better with wheels on tarmac and a kid, speaking for myself only, would be a real no-no.

But everyone is different.;)

ninky_2

bugslet wrote: »

Could be right ninky, but as I said we are a small firm and we know eah other pretty well. Most drivers don't even want to do a job where they are confined to one place, that's why they take up driving in the first place and if you do Europe and Scandanavia as we do, the wish to be on the road is pretty strong. Some people grow out of it, some don't.

I'm certainly sorry I gave up being on the road and expanded the firm, much better with wheels on tarmac and a kid, speaking for myself only, would be a real no-no.

But everyone is different.;)

Scandanavia. now that's a place where real men know how to do parental leave...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/10/world/europe/10iht-sweden.html

SPOLAND, SWEDEN — Mikael Karlsson owns a snowmobile, two hunting dogs and five guns. In his spare time, this soldier-turned-game warden shoots moose and trades potty-training tips with other fathers. Cradling 2-month-old Siri in his arms, he can’t imagine not taking baby leave. “Everyone does.”
From trendy central Stockholm to this village in the rugged forest south of the Arctic Circle, 85 percent of Swedish fathers take parental leave. Those who don’t face questions from family, friends and colleagues. As other countries still tinker with maternity leave and women’s rights, Sweden may be a glimpse of the future.


In this land of Viking lore, men are at the heart of the gender-equality debate. The ponytailed center-right finance minister calls himself a feminist, ads for cleaning products rarely feature women as homemakers, and preschools vet books for gender stereotypes in animal characters. For nearly four decades, governments of all political hues have legislated to give women equal rights at work — and men equal rights at home.
Swedish mothers still take more time off with children — almost four times as much. And some who thought they wanted their men to help raise baby now find themselves coveting more time at home.
But laws reserving at least two months of the generously paid, 13-month parental leave exclusively for fathers — a quota that could well double after the September election — have set off profound social change.
Companies have come to expect employees to take leave irrespective of gender, and not to penalize fathers at promotion time. Women’s paychecks are benefiting and the shift in fathers’ roles is perceived as playing a part in lower divorce rates and increasing joint custody of children.
In perhaps the most striking example of social engineering, a new definition of masculinity is emerging.

chewmylegoff

ninky wrote: »

yes indeed. afaik these new rules don't entitle men to company mat pay - but i believe the rules are going to continue to change to bring us more in line with other european countries so this may change too. from what i can see the main difference is an employer will be asked to keep a man's job open for up to six months to allow them to take this leave. the payment is smp from the state.

i shouldn't think the govt is going to be too quick to increase the amount of paid leave that the employer must provide from 6 weeks to 40 weeks (i.e. match paternal rights to company-funded paid leave to maternal rights), there is already enough resistance to the EU directive to extend it to 20 weeks for the mother.

big companies could afford it, but imagine the impact on a small company if Mr X knocks up Ms Y after the christmas party and it then has to provide them both with 20 weeks paid leave. no more christmas parties.

that said, getting employers to pay maternity leave instead of the state would help to reduce the deficit!

chewmylegoff

ninky wrote: »

men don't always wear the trousers in relationships however. if their wife / partner is getting really fed up with being at home it may well be she suggests it's time for him to pull his weight on the childcare front. i reckon once one person does it the others are more likely to follow. being the first man in a group of blokey truckers to take paternity leave might require a degree of bravery.

in some (potentially a lot) of cases i expect it will simply be a case of maths. if the mother earns materially more than the father, she'll be back to work after 20 weeks.