In defence of parental leave!   

9 October 2006

The law on gender equality needs to be reexamined and possibly changed in order to stop women from being disadvantaged in the workplace for taking maternity leave say PES president Poul Nyrup Rasmussen and PES Women President Zita Gurmai.

In a letter to the European Commissioner for Employment and Social Affairs, Vladimir Spidla, the two PES leaders point out that a recent case in the European Court of Justice  highlights the fact that taking maternity leave can provide a “legal” justification for paying women less than men.

Rasmussen and Gurmai write “It strikes us as profoundly wrong that the take-up of maternity leave could disadvantage women in the labour market. Furthermore it undermines important European policy objectives aimed at increasing Europe’s competitiveness and tackling Europe’s demographic challenges. “

They go on to say “we are alarmed that taking maternity leave is a cause of unequal pay. It seriously undermines our efforts to enable women to participate equally in the workplace, and punishes women for trying to balance work and family commitments.”

They also express concern about the effect it could have on fathers “it provides men with an incentive not to take paternity leave”.

Rasmussen and Gurmai make it clear that it is the European Commission that should be leading European social policy – not the Court of Justice, their letter states “important decisions about social policy should not be made by a court.”

They ask Commissioner Vladimir Spidla “We kindly urge you to take immediate action to assess and remedy a potentially major problem in an important pillar of our Social Europe.  We think it would be very helpful if you could urgently examine the legislation and propose any necessary changes to tackle discrimination against workers taking parental leave.”