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 20th congress of the Democratic Socialist
Party in December.]
From Green Left Weekly, January 15, 2003.
Visit the Green Left Weekly
home page.
