There's been a strong response from CPSU women to our recent survey about your experiences balancing your career with raising a family.
For mums:
If you have had a child in the last five years, please take a few minutes to complete our survey before May 11 2008. This feedback will help form part of our submission to the Productivity Commission's maternity leave enquiry.
For everyone else:
Next up we want to hear from CPSU members - male and female - who do not have kids but are are thinking about starting a family soon. Or have started a family through adoption. What changes do you think need to be made to the current system? Please take a few moments to the members' comment below and feel free to post your comments at the bottom of the page.
YOUR SAY
As a woman in her early 30s I am watching the maternity leave debate with interest (as my husband and I are considering starting a family), however much of the discussion surrounds the experience of women who have already had child and there does not seem to be an avenue for women who are considering their options (like managing work/family balance, how to afford a child, availability of appropriate day-care, managing the mortgage etc).
As part of the CPSU, will we be given an opportunity to voice our concerns surrounding the decision to start a family, as I have concerns with managing work/life balance (as both my husband and I are EL 1s) as the trends for those at the executive levels and above is for longer unpaid hours. I have watched colleagues return from mat leave to work part-time only to be working a 5 day week over 3-4 days a week, getting tired, strung out and stressed as they attempt to manage a baby/toddler with the demands of an EL 1 position.
Also, with the current economic environment being able to afford a child and still adequately pay the mortgage, find day-care and what to do when the child gets sick as I have no family nearby and my husband's mother has died are real issues affecting our decision making process. Regards Cally
I hope in putting together your thinking on maternity leave you also remember that many women are choosing not to have children and are not always supportive of parents getting so much paid leave at our expense.
For my part, I don't mind if parents get paid leave to have children (although I think it is important to take into account that having children is done on a voluntary basis and is therefore a choice....and one which should include consideration of whether you can afford to have those children and raise them responsibly); however, I think I should also be entitled to an equivalent amount of paid leave to do something constructive - such as further study.
I know this view won't be popular, but it is a view also shared by many of my friends in the public service and it is a view which few have the guts to raise because it is not considered to be 'ideologically sound'. Cheers Kerri
I am unable to complete your survey on maternity leave as although I have become a parent in the last 5 years it was not biologically, but via adoption, and through personal circumstances I will never be able to access maternity leave. While I applaud the CPSU's push for increased maternity leave, I would also strongly urge the CPSU to address the 'discrimination' that adoptive families face in many Australian Government agencies because many do not give equal access to leave to parents who create their families via adoption (rather than biologically).
Adoption is a valid form of family creation but many agencies give no leave or only half of what it provide to those of maternity leave. I was fortunate I worked in an agency when I adopted our daughter in 2003 that provided access to adoption leave equivalent to maternity leave.
I now work in a Department, as I await our second adoption, that also offers adoption leave on par with maternity leave (and this was a key factor in my decision about moving to another agency - I will not/cannot be employed by an agency that discriminates against adoptive parents).
But many of my friends (and my own husband) work for agencies that don't - they have to used their recreation leave and LSL or take LWOP. To hear the 'dark ages' reasoning given by some agencies that maternity leave is a de facto form of sick leave to allow the mother to recover, and therefore adoptive parents don't need it, is maddening (I believe pregnancy as an illness went out the door mid last century).
Maternity leave is about enabling families to bond and is the best interest of the child. Children entering families via adoption also need to bond with their families and get a good start - this is probably more important for adoptive children as they often come from institutional settings and must learn what is means to be in a family - they should not and can not be immediately placed into another institutional setting (ie childcare).
While someone who gives birth is able to return to work early if they choose, adoptive parents are required to sign undertakings, with the State/Territory agency that oversights adoptions, that they will take up to 12 months leave post the adoption (because it is so important that the children not immediately be placed in childcare) - but this is a significant financial impost of adoptive families. So while I do think that maternity leave should be extended it would be a further slap in the face to adoptive parents to have to sit back with no paid leave while others were getting 26 weeks paid leave for parenting their child. Lisa
Your survey is not for women who have had a child in the last five years, but rather for those who have used maternity leave in the last five years. Some women leave the workforce after their first or second child, have subsequent children while not in the workforce, and then return to work when the youngest is at a manageable age.
Not to mention staff on contracts may or may not get maternity leave depending on their timing. In another place and time, I got 11 weeks paid maternity leave and no unpaid leave because my one year contract (which was my third consecutive one year contract) expired while I was on leave.
A new contract could not start on leave so I could either give up my job or return to work with a 2 month old baby. Oddly enough the same employer reinstated me on another one year contract starting exactly when my maternity leave would have finished, but I lost all sorts of continuity of service benefits, including my superannuation fund closing in the interim and having to join a new (less generous) fund upon my return. Denise
I was wondering why teenagers are never considered in the Budget or in anything the CPSU fight for since they cost the most to take care of especially if they are doing tertiary studies. YK
The World Health Organisation recommends that for the optimum health of a child, they should be breastfed for 6 months.
The state public service still hold launches and events from 5.30pm - impacting particularly on family members picking up children from childcare and preparing dinner. Staff who are expected to travel for work and work afterhours, there is no support in place for childcare needs after hours. There is an assumption that workers will have family or a spouse able to take up these caring needs and are also not required to work after hours.
Posted by:Terry - 29 May 2008, 11:51am
6 Months parental leave - your kidding right. Were facing increasing pressure in productivity, down sizing and reductions in funding, rising inflation and jobs being moved offshore (read your own news letter) and the ACTU and CPSU are fighting to make it harder for employers to make their profits, or government departments to meet productivity gains. The cost at government level would be met at the department finance section, any 26 week paid mat leave = a loss of ASL for that department. Each department will be required to financially factor in the possibility of a greater cost in section leave, presenting productivity / saving decreases.
Additionally - what about Pat leave does the father now not have the right to nurture their own.
In a market of reduction this is a inanely stupid push from the CPSU.
Yours Sincerely
Posted by:Rod Walker - 21 May 2008, 11:22am
In regards to Lisa's comment that someone might have to take LSL or Rec Leave - shock & horror! You might have to actually use some of your accrued leave if you want to stay home with your baby for a while longer than maternity leave allows! Pardon me, but isn't that what "leave" is for? The conditions surrounding maternity leave in the PS can't be too bad as I see lots of women in my agency leaving to have one baby, returning for a short time, and then going off to have another baby. Really, if you are planning to have children then maybe you need to do some planning around saving up leave entitlements, buying some extra purchased leave, etc. After all, those women do not suddenly arrive home with a new born to find they have forgotten to equip the nursery, so what's wrong with a little planning around the time they will have to spend with their new child after the birth, rather than using it by going on expensive holidays pre-birth? I also do not believe I should have to pay for women's choices to become mothers and get more leave - I already pay through my taxes for things like Family Tax Benefit, Baby Bonus, Maternity Immunisation Allowance, Parenting Payment, etc, etc to assist in raising their children.
Posted by:meg - 13 May 2008, 9:04am
If we ever reach a truly civilised state, we will live in a society where all the needs of children, both primary and secondary needs, are placed as priorities within our Budget, and that includes maternity leave, better schools and decent child protection. There will be part-time work for all (sorry, those huge houses, big TVs and monster cars may have to be sacrificed) and we'll all enjoy the consequences of significantly less violence, poverty and exclusion. With a common interest in this outcome, which we should all foster and encourage, that's no more a dream than sending a person to the moon, so before you have a scoff, have a think.
Posted by:m g - 8 May 2008, 4:21pm
I've been there and done that as far as having children is concerned, without any paid maternity leave, or special car parking areas in shopping centres and it has not harmed either of my children. I feel that having children is your choice and not up to the employer to finance - if you want children strongly enough you adapt your living to your new circumstances and not expect any one else to pay for your choice
Some other points to add to this debate:
6 Months parental leave - your kidding right. Were facing increasing pressure in productivity, down sizing and reductions in funding, rising inflation and jobs being moved offshore (read your own news letter) and the ACTU and CPSU are fighting to make it harder for employers to make their profits, or government departments to meet productivity gains. The cost at government level would be met at the department finance section, any 26 week paid mat leave = a loss of ASL for that department. Each department will be required to financially factor in the possibility of a greater cost in section leave, presenting productivity / saving decreases.
Additionally - what about Pat leave does the father now not have the right to nurture their own.
In a market of reduction this is a inanely stupid push from the CPSU.
Yours Sincerely
In regards to Lisa's comment that someone might have to take LSL or Rec Leave - shock & horror! You might have to actually use some of your accrued leave if you want to stay home with your baby for a while longer than maternity leave allows! Pardon me, but isn't that what "leave" is for? The conditions surrounding maternity leave in the PS can't be too bad as I see lots of women in my agency leaving to have one baby, returning for a short time, and then going off to have another baby. Really, if you are planning to have children then maybe you need to do some planning around saving up leave entitlements, buying some extra purchased leave, etc. After all, those women do not suddenly arrive home with a new born to find they have forgotten to equip the nursery, so what's wrong with a little planning around the time they will have to spend with their new child after the birth, rather than using it by going on expensive holidays pre-birth? I also do not believe I should have to pay for women's choices to become mothers and get more leave - I already pay through my taxes for things like Family Tax Benefit, Baby Bonus, Maternity Immunisation Allowance, Parenting Payment, etc, etc to assist in raising their children.
If we ever reach a truly civilised state, we will live in a society where all the needs of children, both primary and secondary needs, are placed as priorities within our Budget, and that includes maternity leave, better schools and decent child protection. There will be part-time work for all (sorry, those huge houses, big TVs and monster cars may have to be sacrificed) and we'll all enjoy the consequences of significantly less violence, poverty and exclusion. With a common interest in this outcome, which we should all foster and encourage, that's no more a dream than sending a person to the moon, so before you have a scoff, have a think.
I've been there and done that as far as having children is concerned, without any paid maternity leave, or special car parking areas in shopping centres and it has not harmed either of my children. I feel that having children is your choice and not up to the employer to finance - if you want children strongly enough you adapt your living to your new circumstances and not expect any one else to pay for your choice