Paid parental leave going backwards: ABS

This article reproduced with kind permission from Workplace Express.

The new survey coincides with the St Vincent de Paul opportunity shop chain in NSW offering 14 weeks paid maternity leave to its 400 employees and a new study showing that breastfeeding suffers when mothers return to work in the first six months after having a baby.

The Bureau's Forms of Employment survey reveals that 42.1% of employees reported in October last year that they were entitled to paid parental leave, down from 42.7% in October 2006.

Some 45.4% of women said they were not entitled, down from 46.9% in 2006.

But the proportion of men who reported they were entitled to parental leave increased slightly, from 38.9% in 2006 to 39% in 2007.

The proportion of employees who said they didn't know about their parental leave entitlements increased, with 21.3% of all employees unaware (up from 20.5% in 2006), 15.3% of women (14.6%) and 26.8% of men (26%).

The number of employees entitled to paid parental leave increased by more than 60,000 to 3,584,300, but this failed to keep pace with the rapid growth of the workforce.

Professor Barbara Pocock, director of the Centre for Work + Life at the University of Adelaide, told Workplace Express the data on parental leave "added weight to the argument for a publicly-funded paid parental leave scheme".

"Despite a lot of publicity for the companies that are providing some paid maternity leave, there is no sign of a positive overall improvement in women's access, with only 45.4 per cent of women saying they have some access in 2007, compared to 46.9 per cent a year earlier.

While companies like Myer are moving in the right direction offering some paid leave to permanents, paid maternity leave is available very unevenly across the labour market, with most women, especially casuals, missing out."

Pocock added that the data also indicated that casualisation continued to be a significant problem in the Australian economy, especially for women.

For example, the data showed that 30% of employees were not entitled to paid leave annual leave. She pointed to New Zealand leading the way with recent legislation providing four weeks paid annual leave for all employees, regardless of whether they are casual or permanent.

14 weeks paid maternity leave after three years for Vinnies workers

Some 400 St Vincent de Paul Society opportunity shop employees in NSW will be entitled to between seven and 14 weeks paid maternity leave after serving a qualifying period, under the terms of a new enterprise agreement struck with the SDA.

The Society's NSW operations will provide seven weeks paid maternity or adoption leave to permanent part- or full-time employees after 12 months, rising to 11 weeks after two years service and 14 weeks after three years service.

The non-primary caregiver will be entitled to two weeks paid parental or adoption leave after 12 months service.

The agreement also provides for one week of grandparental leave

Danny Klepac, the Society's NSW executive officer for operations, told Workplace Express he believed maternity leave went "hand-in-hand" with part-time work, saying that employers who couldn't facilitate a part-time return to work after employees had a baby were effectively paying a redundancy entitlement.

He was confident St Vincent de Paul could provide a flexible return to work "pathway" for its working mothers, he said.

Klepac said that that about 70% of the Vinnies workforce was female.

He said the NSW society intended to roll out similar provisions for its remaining 600 employees in the state.

Klepac said workers would vote on the proposed enterprise agreement next month.

SDA NSW branch secretary Gerard Dwyer said in a statement that St Vincent de Paul had provided a "modern and best practice platform" for employment under the proposed deal.

The society said in a statement that the agreement complied with the standards in the Catholic encyclical on employment relations, Rerum Novarum, and the Australian Institute of Employment Rights' Charter of Employment Rights.

Early return to work means mothers failing to attain six-months breastfeeding benchmark

A new Melbourne University study shows that mothers tend to stop breastfeeding their babies if they return to work within six months of birth - even if they resume as casuals or part-timers.

The World Health Organisation recommends that mothers exclusively breastfeed their babies for at least six months, but the new research, led by the University of Melbourne's Amanda Crooklin, shows that most Australian mothers are not meeting only failing to reach that benchmark - less than half get any breastmilk at six months - but that returning to work has a strong influence.

Mothers who return to full-time work before three months have twice the likelihood of ceasing any breastfeeding before six months as mothers not in the workforce, while returning between three and six months tripled the likelihood.

Returning to work part-time (less than 30 hours a week) or as a casual with variable hours from three to six months after having a baby also has a strong effect on reducing breastfeeding at six months, according to the study, with only 44% of babies receiving some breastmilk, compared to 56% of mothers not in the workforce.

The authors - Cooklin, Susan Donath of the Murdoch Children's Research Centre in Melbourne and Lisa Amir of the La Trobe University - surmise that the "marked absence of workplace support for breastfeeding in Australian workplaces" is to blame for the low rates of breastfeeding among working mothers.

"It is possible that once the infant has reached 3 months of age, both employers and employees may feel that the provision of even minimal support for breastfeeding and breast milk expression is no longer sustainable, and that women need to promptly resume their prebirth capacity".

They say further research is needed to assess the effect of measures such as lactation breaks, employer education and paid maternity leave on rates of breastfeeding at six months.

Maternal employment and breastfeeding: results from the longitudinal study of Australian children, Amanda R Cooklin, Susan M Donath and Lisa H Amir, to be published in Acta Paediatrica

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