Over the past 12 years the trade union movement has worked with the Labour government to bring in a vast tally of rights and recognitions that have made a real difference to the lives of women in the workplace and beyond. The trade unions have campaigned long and hard on behalf of working women, for workplace equality rights and an end to gender based discrimination. These very same rights were, at best, eroded and at worst, extinguished during the previous 18 years of Conservative rule.
It is with rising frustration and building fury then that we are treated to a myriad of recent interviews and articles with professional women claiming that women’s rights, particularly in the workplace, have now gone too far. That the extensions in maternity leave and pay are bad for business and are consequently having a detrimental impact on a woman’s employability so should therefore be reduced.
The debate about women not being able to ‘have it all’, having to aspire to be some kind of superwoman to successfully balance a career and family life is ongoing and will form the basis of many more articles than this one. But rather, the recent media space given to what is being billed as a female backlash to women’s rights, misses the point as to why and for whom we have fought for these rights and why they should not be dismissed as a burdensome optional extra.
The women who are speaking out against women’s workplace rights and anti-discrimination legislation appear largely to be either sitting on a multi million pound fortune; have well connected family and friends; have live in ‘help’; and/or choose to take less maternity leave or not reduce their hours in order to meet the financial demands of privately educating their children. This is not representative of the majority of working women.
The women who form the frontline of the everyday services we take for granted – in the doctor’s surgery, at the supermarket checkout, the child minder, the bank clerk, the cleaner, the call centre worker, the nursery nurse – these are hard working people who form the backbone of our communities, both economically and socially. They don’t have (nor can afford) nannies so look to the state for support in the face of an economic and social environment that is all too often weighted against them.
There is much chatter around choice – and where women want to work it is right that there is now the right to request a working pattern that fits with their other responsibilities in life – but who has that choice? We must recognise that for many women it is about necessity.
In the main the working women that unions represent do not expect nor are searching for a work/life nirvana but what they simply deserve is a fair bite of the workplace cherry and an end to gender based discrimination. The facts speak for themselves – 30,000 women still lose their jobs each year because they are pregnant and women remain amongst the lowest paid with one in five women who work in the capital earning less than the London living wage.
It is all well and good waxing lyrical about a year being too long a period away from work to have a baby but it is the lucky few who can afford not to take the leave and protection afforded to them in law. Inequality has economic roots; therefore, the rights that Labour has delivered to women are important, especially to those women who don’t have cushions of millions and/or a privileged background.
There are reports that new provision on flexible working and maternity leave can create some practical difficulties in the workplace and can sometimes breed resentment. Additionally, there are claims that some companies prefer not to hire women considered to be of ‘child bearing age’ instead favouring men of the same age or older women. Some are saying that because times are hard and the economy is under pressure we should retreat on the fairness agenda as it is a luxury we cannot afford. Discrimination is never acceptable but it is even more objectionable when people already feel hard pressed and are struggling.
What perhaps needs to be looked at is how responsibility of childcare and maternity and paternity leave is shared between partners – despite many of the welcome advances, it is women who disproportionately take on caring and family responsibilities on top of working – whether full time, flexible or part time. In addition, what about making it more possible for a couple to decide between them how they distribute leave after a new baby comes along and for the early years of a child’s life? Over time this would go some way to breaking down the assumptions that it is women alone who interrupt their working life to have a baby. Legally we may have come far but culturally there is a long road ahead in terms of changing attitudes.
The answer is not to retreat on what has already been achieved but to go further forward in fairness ensuring a more equitable work place and world. Additionally, we must work together – government, trade unions, employers and employees – and look practically at how we ensure that current and future hard fought legislation is made workable on a daily basis, without rolling back the tide of reform and protecting those who need it most.
Over the last 30 years the pattern of equality legislation is clear. Labour governments from 1965 to 1979 championed the equality agenda and created a framework for individual rights – on race, equal pay and sex discrimination. A Labour government from 1997 has brought in equal pay and conditions for part time workers (who are overwhelmingly women), extended paid maternity leave from 18 to 39 weeks and doubled maternity pay; introduced paid paternity leave of two weeks for new fathers; ended the slavery status of migrant domestic workers and introduced measures to tackle unfairness to women by recognising the contribution of mothers and carers for pensions and national insurance. The trade unions are proud of what has been achieved under Labour and it is only Labour that has, can and will deliver for working women.