Yeyy UK!

The UK government announced last week that fathers will soon have the right to take up to six months of paternity leave!

Both The Guardian and The Telegraph reported that starting April 2011, fathers will be able to take the place of the mother for the last 3 months of her 9 month maternity leave and be eligible for statutory governmental pay of £123 a week. After that, he can choose to take an addition 3 months of unpaid paternity leave.

This is great news for parents because this now allows them to have a total of 12 months of parental leave that they are able to split between the two parents. But unfortunately, Ministers estimate that "between 4% and 8% of those eligible for the new leave will take it."

Much of the credit can be given to Equalities Minister, Harriet Harman, who has been working for these types of parental rights. Harman claims, "we've doubled maternity leave; doubled maternity pay; introduced paternity leave; more than doubled good quality affordable childcare places; and introduced right to request flexible working."

Many businesses are up in arms about this new policy claiming that this is placing an unnecessary burden upon them at an already difficult economic time. Fortunately for them, if single digit percentages of fathers take this opportunity, "only 1% of businesses will be affected".

Countries all over Europe are adopting paternity leave policies that are helping enforce equality in the workplace. A prime example is Sweden where parents are given 16 months of paid parental leave, of which the minority parent (typically the father) is required to take at least 2 of those months. The United States has not made much of an effort to mimic these countries. The Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) is the closest thing the US has to legally required parental leave and it only gives either parent 12 weeks of unpaid parental leave. Currently, there is a bill going through Congress called the Federal Employees Paid Parental Leave Act of 2009, which gives federal employees paid leave for 4 of the 12 weeks allowed under the FMLA. This only applies to federal employees but is a small push towards paid parental leave for both parents.

photo courtesy of U.S. Army via Flickr

US Lags in Family-Friendly Work Policies

The United States lags behind most other industrialized countries in failing to provide paid sick leave, paid paternal leave, breastfeeding breaks and other policies to support workers, according to an eight-year-long worldwide study released this week that focuses on family-friendly workplace policy. Raising the Global Floor: Dismantling the Myth that We Can't Afford Good Working Conditions for Everyone, is the most extensive study of its kind. The report compiled information from 190 of 192 United Nations countries and from 55,000 households on seven continents. The study was led by researchers at Harvard and McGill Universities.

Researchers found that US law does not guarantee paid leave for new mothers (177 countries do), paid paternal leave (74 countries do), paid leave to care for an ill child (48 countries do), paid annual leave (164 countries do), paid sick leave (163 countries do), and a day of rest each week to workers (157 countries do). The report sought to examine the economic feasibility of implementing these policies as well as the costs and benefits of providing this safety net for working families.

"The world's most successful and competitive nations are providing the supports the United States lacks, without harming their competitiveness," lead author Jody Heymann of McGill University said in a press release. "Globally, we found that none of these working conditions are linked with lower levels of economic competitiveness or employment. There simply is no negative relationship at all between decent working conditions and competitiveness or job creation. In fact, we found that a number of these guarantees are associated with increased competitiveness."

This study's release follows the publication of the Shriver Report last month, which was a comprehensive study of women becoming the majority of the American workforce. Ms. Magazine recently addressed the need for US legislation to develop women-friendly economic policies like those detailed in Raising the Global Floor, in light of women becoming more than 50 percent of US paid workers. Authors Karen Kornbluh and Rachel Homer said in Ms., "True reform of our safety net would mean that American families are assured that their income will be replaced not only as a result of retirement, disability or unemployment but also when they have to care for a new child or an ill relative."

Source: Feminist News

Image credit: EverJean on flickr.com

Newsday Tuesday: June 9 Edition

Hey there, feminist folk, here's your Tuesday roundup of the hottest feminist news this week:

In the US, the death of Dr. George Tiller and related news has dominated the newswire. However, a few other domestic things have come across our radar:

• The Supreme Court will not hear a case challenging the constitutionality of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy, banning gays and lesbians from openly serving in the military.
  
  
• In New Hampshire, legislation legalizing same-sex marriage was signed into law by Governor John Lynch.
  
  
• The US House passed the Federal Paid Parental Leave Act, which would provide 4 weeks of paid parental leave to Federal Employees after the birth or adoption of a child.
  
  
• Recent polls are showing that Supreme Court Nominee Sonia Sotomayor has public support - Sotomayor would be the third woman and the first Hispanic to serve on the Supreme Court, if confirmed.

On the Global Front:

• Meira Kumar, an Indian parliamentarian, is expected to become India's first female Speaker! In other India-related news, Pratibha Patil, the country's first woman president, announced an initiative to pass legislation to empower women in government by reserving a portion of seats for women.
  
  
• President Obama's speech in Cairo addressed global women's rights, including rights of women in Islam.
  
  
• The number of reported rapes in the Democratic Republic of Congo is soaring, with incidences caused primarily by the Democratic Forces of the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a Rwandan Hutu rebel group.