BY YOUR LEAVE…

Sometimes you wonder of any of these self-styled geniuses in Canberra have ever worked in a shop or an office or ever owned a small business.

Or all the lawyers and former union secretaries that out of touch with the real world.

What’s prompted these thoughts is the latest election carrot from the Howard Government’s Joe Hockey offering up to 12 months unpaid leave for grandparents and offering other workers the chance to take double their holiday entitlements at half their regular pay.

Add that to the Labor Party’s dream of paid maternity leave and the Democrats idea of compensating virtually everybody from the new Mum to the Dad and the bassinette maker. And you wonder how any small business can make a quid and keep people employed.

Let’s pick these apart one by one in the harsh reality of the real working world. A person decides to take eight weeks leave at half pay instead of the usual four. What does the employer do?  He or she has hire somebody to fill the job. And they can’t pay them half pay for doing a fulltime job. So they are immediately out of pocket.

Then look at the so-called ‘grandpa clause’. Why should a grandparent be given a year off work to help look after not their child, but their child’s child?  Retire if you feel that strongly about it.

Two things here. People in their Fifties and Sixties worry that they may be considered too old for the job they hold. It’s going to do wonders for their future being out of the loop for a year isn’t it? And they way technology is bounding ahead you could be an indispensable expert in the  company’s software system in November 2007 and an absolute novice in November 2008.

And what happens if the person they replace you with is better? How long will you hold your job on your return?

I’ve railed before about 12-months maternity leave which is stacked totally against the employer. He or she cannot even approach you six months into motherhood and ask you if you are planning to come back. And many mothers don’t know. Don’t know how they will handle a first child. Don’t know if they even want to get back into the workforce and face the rigours and costs of child care centres.

Meanwhile a company is forced into a holding pattern. They can only offer a replacement a temporary position. They can’t promote somebody into the absent mother’s place because they’ll have to be demoted if she deigns to come back.

This is not an anti-motherhood diatribe. It’s just a realistic look from the real world.

Industrial Relations Minister Hockey says the changes announced yesterday  would ‘help Australians better manage the work-family challenge’. Well, your parents managed it Mr. Hockey and so did mine and Julie Gillard’s. 

If a woman wants to take five years off that’s fine. If her husband wants to share the first year at home with the new-born then that’s fine. But don’t expect the identical job to be there when you decide to go back.

Thursday, November 8, 2007

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2007