Union to pursue increased paid maternity leave

By Siobhan Callan

Federation is to pursue improvements to maternity leave including an extension of current entitlements from nine weeks to 16 weeks on full pay.

August Council carried a recommendation that originated from a recommendation carried at Women's Conference.

NSW public education teachers have historically had access to maternity and adoption leave provisions that have placed them ahead of other women workers across Australia. However, NSW teachers have started to fall behind in these entitlements in comparison to their public education colleagues in other states.

The most important issue is the length of the period of paid maternity leave available to teachers. Women teachers in the ACT, the Northern Territory and most recently Victoria, have achieved 14 weeks maternity leave on full pay.

Federation will be pursuing a claim of 16 weeks maternity leave on full pay, (the current entitlement is six weeks on full pay and six weeks on half pay) as well as pursuing and improving upon maternity leave entitlements gained for teachers in other states.

Examples of these include the option provided in the ACT, Queensland and the Northern Territory for school teachers to take a greater proportion of their maternity leave on half pay in order to extend the period of time that women could spend with their babies before returning to work for financial reasons. (This option is currently available to NSW TAFE teachers.) Also, that all workplaces must provide areas suitable for breastfeeding by employees, as well as the availability of appropriate release time for women teachers who are breastfeeding (even though NSW teachers already have some rights in these area), as achieved in Tasmania.

It is important to acknowledge the work that has been done by Federation since 2001, especially in relation to paternity leave provisions and adoption leave entitlements. However, many injustices still exist around maternity leave. For example, if women have very premature babies there is no paid leave available until six weeks before the original anticipated date of birth. Clearly women in these circumstances need access to some kind of paid leave to cover this unanticipated period.

Payment in lieu of maternity leave can still be difficult to obtain for casual teachers. Much has been gained for teachers employed in temporary engagements in terms of accessing payments. However, to be eligible, temporary and other casual teachers must have worked more or less continuously for 40 weeks in the period leading up to the birth of the baby and this requirement still presents difficulties. Casual teachers have often worked for many days in any given year but this service can easily be broken by days when the casual teacher doesn't receive a call from a school and these women are missing out. Federation will continue to work towards access to maternity leave payments for casuals, possibly on a pro-rata basis.

In carrying this recommendation at Federation Women's Conference and then Council, recognition was given to the importance of our union in leading the way for other workers to gain extended maternity leave provisions. Currently the ACTU is campaigning for the right to 14 weeks paid maternity leave for all Australian women workers. It is shameful that Australia (along with the United States), remains one of only two OECD countries that do not provide universal paid maternity leave to all women workers. There is an ever increasing number of one parent families in Australia and the cost of living and the level of wages are such that families often need two incomes in order for families to survive. Provision must be made for women and families to cope financially when time off is needed to care for a new baby in important early stages of its life.

Only a small percentage of teachers need to access maternity leave each year. The cost of making these changes, comparatively, is not a huge one for the Government. However, this small cost for the Department would make a huge difference in the lives of many working mothers.

Siobhan Callan is Women's Coordinator.

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August 2004 contents