What's missing from the paid maternity leave debate?

BY KERRYN WILLIAMS 

On December 12, federal sex discrimination commissioner Pru Goward released her final proposal for 14 weeks of government-funded paid maternity leave, to be included in the 2003 federal budget.

Under the scheme, women who have been in paid work for 40 out of the 52 weeks prior to giving birth would be eligible for the leave, including women working in full-time, part-time and casual jobs as well as contractors, self-employed and women in small business.

Goward claimed, in her December 11 speech launching the proposal, that the scheme would replace 100% of the earnings of casual and part-time workers. She also said that between 62% and 73% of all women in paid work would receive two-thirds of their earnings.

Payment will be set by the federal minimum wage, or the woman's previous earnings, whichever is the lesser amount. So women currently in casual or part-time jobs will only be eligible for an amount equalling their current earnings, and women employed for less than 40 weeks in the year prior to the birth of their child will not be eligible at all.

A national paid maternity leave scheme would represent a step forward for many women workers. Australia and the United States are the only two countries in the First World without such a scheme.

Less than one-third of women in the paid work force in Australia, and just 24% of those working in the private sector, have access to any paid maternity leave. Where it exists, it has been fought for by unions as part of their enterprise agreements and awards.

For example, the Victorian branch of the Australian Nurses Federation won six weeks paid maternity leave in its 2000 enterprise bargaining agreement, and the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union has achieved six weeks in the major automotive companies in Victoria. The standard in the public service is 12 weeks, with several agencies gaining 14 weeks in their certified agreements. In the National Tertiary Education Industry Union's latest round of negotiations, it is claiming 14 weeks paid maternity leave.

Goward's scheme would give paid maternity leave to more women workers, but it leaves big gaps. A big one is parental leave. Goward argues that paid leave should only be offered to women due to their biological role in giving birth. This reinforces the assumption that it is the woman who necessarily has to be the primary caregiver, and ignores the desire and responsibility of fathers to take part in a child's upbringing.

Another question that has been largely excluded from the debate is whether business should pay for the leave. In her speech releasing the paper, Goward claimed that “no one wanted employers alone to be made to pay”. She argued that her proposal took the pressure off employers, saying: “Concern was expressed that paid maternity leave, if offered as an industrial entitlement, would lead to further industrial pressure for full-wage maternity leave to be included in awards.”

The proposed scheme will be entirely funded by the government, and employers will not be forced to contribute, but will be “encouraged to top up the benefits”. In effect, this will mean employers contribute only when workers force them through the bargaining process. Goward's proposal represents yet another subsidy by government of business.

At the heart of the paid maternity leave debate is a contradiction of the capitalist system. While families have to shoulder the burden of providing free welfare services and ensuring the material and social development of a new generation of workers, this is becoming unworkable for many families, as working hours increase and more women are drawn into the workforce.

This contradiction has led many conservatives to support some form of paid maternity leave, partly as a response to the corporate media hysteria surrounding the falling fertility rate. In Australia, the fertility rate has now declined to 1.7 children per woman, which is well below the replacement rate (excluding migration changes). This has become a key focus of the right's ideological drive to reinforce the role and responsibility of women in the home and as mothers.

But it is not possible in today's society to simply convince women that it's better for their children and for society if they stay at home and don’t engage in paid work. Aside from capitalism's need to keep women as a lasting, and poorer paid, component of the work force, ideological gains of the women's liberation movement remain. Most women now expect to be able to participate in paid work.

Full-time unpaid child-rearing is also not a viable option for many women. Many poorer women who don't have access to paid maternity leave are back to work within six weeks of the birth of their child, due not to choice, but to financial compulsion.

Goward's proposal acknowledges that most women in this society have dual careers — as both workers and mothers. The push for paid maternity leave is part of the pressure to reconcile or balance this. But, at the same time as this is being proposed, more women are being pushed into part-time and casual work, child-care services are in crisis, and the federal government is pushing for further changes to welfare payments that will increase pressure on single parents and other recipients of social security benefits.

So while Goward's maternity leave proposal is one attempt to address the unresolvable strain on the family unit and women within it, the neoliberal austerity drive continues to heighten and deepen the pressure. Only much more far-reaching social change — socialism — can resolve the contradiction.

[Kerryn Williams is a member of the Democratic Socialist Party national executive. This is an extract from her report, “Fighting for women’s liberation today”, adopted by the 20^th congress of the Democratic Socialist Party in December.]

From Green Left Weekly, January 15, 2003.
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