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| A dad with his new born baby. |
Lots of businesses, mainly small firms, see this new legislation as a burden to them. They say that not only will this be costly but they simply do not have the employees to deal with all the paperwork.
However the new law states that a father can only take his six months paternity leave once the child’s mother has returned to work after her first six months leave. Therefore employers are not really paying any more than they were before: parents are simply sharing what used to be a year of maternity leave.
This makes me question whether many employers, especially these vocal small businesses, had a bias against young woman of child bearing age before this new legislation came into action.
If they are now so worked up about their male staff potentially having six months off work after the birth of their child, does this mean that they would simply not have employed a woman in the past just in case she became pregnant?
Personally I think the new law will make employment fairer. If both women and men get the same amount of time off after the birth of a child then this should eliminate bias when women go for jobs.
Also, I think the bosses out there who are angry about this change should come and join the rest of us in the 21st century. Traditionally men would be the earners of the family and put food on the table, but things have changed. These days there are many women who earn more than their husbands and therefore need to get back to work, leaving the man to care for the children.
As Brendan Barber, the TUC general secretary, said: “Good employers should have nothing to fear from these employment changes."
The government also hopes to extend the measures by 2015 with a fully flexible system of shared parental leave.
So all those grumpy employers and big angry bosses better get used to it!
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