Australia Lagging in Maternity Leave Stakes - Essay Example

?Topic: Article Review – Australian Employment Relation Issues Introduction Here the focus is on the review of the article d “Australia Lagging in Maternity Leave Stakes” published by ABC News. The main argument of this article is that Australia being a developed nation still lags behind in employment relation system when it is the question of its citizens’ human rights. Here Tim Leslie, who is the author of the article, sheds light upon the state of female employees in Australia, who are rejected of their rights to claim maternity leave. According to Leslie (2012), “An advocacy group has used Mother's Day to release a report showing Australian women are worse off than those in other developed countries.” Here the projection is due to the fact that although being a developed nation, the government is ignorant about the laws and reforms of employment relations. The article is more vividly focused on the status of children of Australia, who are ridden of maternal love and care due to the weak employment relation law of Australian government. The article shows that Australia lags behind some of the developing countries on employment relations issue, which is a shame on the country’s prestige. The article argues that the maternity leave provision of the country is weak and this reflects on the health and wellbeing of Australian children. The author has put down some major points in this article, which conveys the government’s concern over the rights of women, and the health and wellbeing of the future generation. The article review The author has put great effort in the introductory part of the article, as it starts with the ill status of Australian mothers comparing to those of the other developed countries. This is an extremely attractive factor as it catches the mind of the readers, as they are interested in knowing the core issue of the article. This introductory part of the article is literally credible since the well acknowledged advocacy group is highlighting the fact. The author has taken interest in providing some statistical facts about other countries when in comparison with Australia, and the place of the latter in the mother index ranking. Here the two parties involved in the employment relation issue are the Australian government and female employees of the country. The article in the later part introduces facts delivered by the established organization Save the Children which adds to the luster and credibility of the article. The Save the Children organization argues that government is less responsible and has shown negligence in implementing right for women employees regarding maternity leave. The article claims that Australia provides only 18 weeks of maternity leave for women employees, which, when compared with other developed countries, is low. As per Leslie (2012), “Probably one of the factors that's bringing us down the most is our paid parental leave scheme. It's recently introduced this year, 18 weeks at a flat rate," spokeswoman Nicole Cardinal said. Such quoting by the author in the article assures the readers that the information delivered is accurate and genuine. Apart from its strength, the article also has some obvious negative aspects which can be presented clearly. The main demerit of the article is that it is small and precise. The author has not put much effort to present more statistical facts about the pathetic state of women in Australia, who are denied maternity leave. The article, moreover, is not casting enough light upon the government’s role in uplifting the employment rights of women in Australia. Here, in the article, the concentration is more on the arguments and suggestion of one organization which is the Save the Children group. This is disadvantageous as the readers must be given a good chance to contemplate on the ideas and perception of other organizations and Government on this matter. Problem Solution and Recommendation The main problem focused here is the ignorance of Australian government in understanding the value of maternal care and health and the wellbeing of the country’s children. The government does not understand that women are the backbone of a family, and they should be given privilege and priority when it is the issue of their employment. The real solution for this problem is that the government should revise their employment relation strategies and law and should add some additional maternity leave to the women employees in order for them to stabilize their family status. I would recommend here that the government should perform a survey in which they would approach women employees and ask them about their satisfaction level regarding the maternity leave issue. Conclusion Here the article “Australia Lagging in Maternity Leave Stakes” published by ABC News is a writing which precisely projects on the backwardness of Australian government in providing genuine human right value to the female citizens of Australia. Here, the highlighting part is that the author is a credible one as she is a professional personality from an esteemed news broadcasting corporation which is the ABC News Channel. Thus, the source can be categorized as credible and authentic one, which reestablishes the trust and confidence of the reader while absorbing the information from the article. Moreover, the subject matter of the article is a current issue, which is controversial and of debating quality in the news media of Australia. The subject matter of the article also has more value due to its connection to the female population. This article, like any other piece of writing, has advantages and disadvantages attached to it. The advantageous part is that the focus of the article is on the weak employment relation law of Australia. The article here conveys the message that Australia being a developed and large economy gives less attention to the plight of the women employees in their country. Here, Australia is compared with other developed nations, where it is shown to be lagging considerably behind in treating the women with right employment facilities. The ironical part is that being one of the topmost continents in the world, Australia ranks seventh among 44 nations in regard to maternity leave provision. As per Leslie (2012), “Australia ranks seventh out of 44 countries, based on the health and wellbeing of their mothers.” In total, it can be said that the article is informative and controversial despite its small and concise format. References Leslie, T. (2012, May 13). Australia lagging in maternity leave stakes. abc.net.au. Retrieved October 15, 2012, from http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-05-13/australia-lagging-in-maternity-leave-stakes/4007980. Appendix Email Facebook Twitter More Australia lagging in maternity leave stakes Updated Sun May 13, 2012 8:37am AEST PHOTO: Australia is trailing Scandinavia in maternity leave options. (ABC: Tim Leslie) EXTERNAL LINK: State of the World's Mothers report RELATED STORY: IAG to double new mothers' salaries RELATED STORY: Fears maternity leave plan could hurt businesses RELATED STORY: Group to fight for re-opening of Bourke's maternity unit MAP: Australia An advocacy group has used Mother's Day to release a report showing Australian women are worse off than those in other developed countries. The children's advocacy group, Save The Children, has today released its State of the World's Mothers report. Australia ranks seventh out of 44 countries, based on the health and wellbeing of their mothers. It has slipped five places in the past year, while New Zealand and several Scandinavian countries have moved ahead. Save the Children says Australian mothers are not faring as well as those in other western nations because their maternity leave options are less generous. Mothers' Index Rankings 1. Norway 2. Iceland 3. Sweden 4. New Zealand 5. Denmark 6. Finland 7. Australia 8. Belgium 9. Ireland 10. Netherlands / UK Read the full report here It says the Federal Government's current maternity leave scheme has a lot of room for improvement. "Probably one of the factors that's bringing us down the most is our paid parental leave scheme. It's recently introduced this year, 18 weeks at a flat rate," spokeswoman Nicole Cardinal said. "That is less generous than what we see in most countries around the developed world. Norway, which came in at the top for instance, has about 36 to 46 weeks for women at almost full pay." The report also shows that Australian women play a smaller role in policy-making while other countries have done more to promote greater female political representation. "Part of that is the gender equality that we see in those countries - in terms of political representation of women. It is quite high," she said. "The ratio of female-to-male income is quite high as well. So we know that where women are in positions of power and certainly in government that we're seeing more positive policies for women and children." Topics: parenting, family-and-children, community-and-society, women, children, australia First posted Sun May 13, 2012 8:36am AES Second News Australia catches up to the world on paid parental leave byJenny Macklin 22 FILED UNDER: EQUALITY, FAMILY, MATERNITY LEAVE, MEN AND WOMEN, PAID PARENTAL LEAVE, SOCIETY, WORK 64 COMMENTS On Tuesday this week, 25,000 Australians delivered a clear message straight to the people who represent them in the nation’s Parliament. With the PM on Tuesday after accepting the petition. Pic: Kym Smith Signing a national petition, nurses, teachers, hospitality and construction workers, uni students, school kids, their mums and dads, their grandparents demanded that their elected representatives stand up and vote for the Rudd Government’s national paid parental leave scheme. After waiting decades, working families are set to be the big winners when the Government delivers Australia’s first paid parental leave scheme and Australia finally catches up with the rest of the developed world on this vital reform. This landmark reform gives new mothers the financial support to make their own choices about work and family responsibilities when their baby is born. Mothers who meet the work test – who have worked for at least of 10 of the 13 months before their child is born and for around one day a week during those 10 months - will be eligible for 18 weeks paid parental leave at the national minimum wage of $570 week. Currently only half of all Australian women have access to paid parental leave, with those on low incomes most likely to miss out. For the first time, the thousands of women who are casuals, who are employed in low-paid or part-time jobs, who are self-employed, are contractors or work in seasonal jobs will have access to paid parental leave. As one young mother told the Productivity Commission inquiry into paid parental leave, she had no alternative other than go back to work just four weeks after the birth of each of her three children. She worked nights and weekends so her partner could be at home for the babies; for years, she said, they were like ships passing in the night. For mums and dads like this, our scheme eases the financial pressure. It also expands their choices, offering them the option to share the leave so they can choose what works best for their family. Of course everyone knows that hard work comes with the territory whether you’re a mum going out to work or at home with the kids. This is why we support families through a range of payments including the Baby Bonus, Family Tax Benefits A and B as well as our paid parental leave scheme. We also know how important it is for workforce participation and national productivity for women to stay connected to the workforce while they are having their children. This is why new mothers will receive their government-funded parental leave pay through their employer on their regular pay day.  We will continue to work with employers to minimise the scheme’s impact on them and to make implementation as simple as possible. Employers know paid parental leave helps them retain their staff; it makes good business sense. Some have already indicated they plan to use the government-funded scheme to complement their own schemes and give their employees greater choice. For 12 years, the Liberals in government not only denied Australians the benefits of paid parental leave, they actively railed against it. Opposition leader Tony Abbott said paid parental leave would only ever happen over his dead body. Now he’s talking about rolling out a sham scheme that will hit business with a massive hike in the company tax rate. Under the Liberals, company tax will increase to 31.7 per cent. Under Labor, company tax will drop to 28 per cent.  The Liberals’ tax hike will flow through and hit families with higher grocery prices.  And it won’t let mums and dads make their own work and family choices.  Under the Liberals’ scheme mothers won’t be allowed to transfer their leave. Tony Abbott just doesn’t understand the reality of life for Australian working families and the different choices different families make raising their kids. He still doesn’t understand what Australian families want and what this Government has delivered – a national, government-funded paid parental leave scheme that’s fair for families and fair to business. Third news Australia's women lead world economically, report finds Date October 16, 2012 Comments 136 Vote Read later Clay Lucas Workplace Editor for The Age View more articles from Clay Lucas Follow Clay on Twitter Email Clay Email article Print Reprints & permissions   These polls are not scientific and reflect the opinion only of visitors who have chosen to participate. As debate rages over sexism and misogyny in Canberra and across the country, a global survey has found Australian women are the most economically empowered in the world. The study says Australian women are the world's most economically advanced in terms of access to education, market participation and anti-discrimination policies. Despite Australia still failing to pay women salaries equal to men – average weekly earnings for women are 17 per cent less than men – the survey by international consulting and management firm Booz & Company found it topped a list of 128 countries in allowing women to play a role as economic agents in their social and political systems. Australia was followed by three Scandinavian countries — Norway, Sweden and Finland. New Zealand was fifth. Advertisement At the bottom of the list were Yemen, Pakistan, Sudan and Chad. Across the globe, the survey found up to 1 billion women will enter the world's workforce over the next decade. Called The Third Billion Index, the report argues that while the burgeoning populations of India and China have been given much attention by the media, less has been paid to the 1 billion women who will soon enter the world's workforce. The report compares each country's performance at providing women with: primary, secondary and tertiary education; equal pay for equal work; non-discrimination policies; access to childcare; property ownership rights; ability to access credit. It also looks at whether wages are equal, the number of women in work compared with men, and whether there is equality in the number of female managers, senior business leaders and politicians. The study used data from the World Economic Forum and the Economist Intelligence Unit to isolate factors that allowed women to have access to the larger economy. The huge jump in female employers and employees, managers and entrepreneurs would power global economic growth but key decision-makers in many countries had insufficiently studied its impact, the report argues. "There is a clear correlation between ... processes and policies regarding women's economic opportunities and the actual success of women in their national economies," said Karim Sabbagh, a partner with Booz & Company. The research also found several common challenges that all women face, regardless of how well the country performed in "empowering women". "Around the world, women are the primary caregivers for children, the elderly and the sick, and this responsibility hampers their economic development," said another Booz and Co partner, DeAnne Aguirre. She said several elements were critical in increasing access to work for women, including widespread, affordable care for children, the elderly and the sick; cultural changes aimed at dividing care work more equitably between men and women; and recognition by the private sector of the importance of care work for all employees. Nations the report says have not yet started to tackle the issue of women more easily entering the workforce, or gaining equality more generally, include most of the Arab states in the study's index, as well as Indonesia, Laos and Nigeria. Helen Conway, the director of the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency, said that, on the face of it, the Booz report painted a positive picture. "In particular, Australian women are among the best educated in the world," she said, with a recent World Economic Forum report also finding Australian women ranked first in educational attainment. She said Australia's high level of female university graduates - more than 50 per cent - and some "infrastructure" such as the federal government’s Paid Parental Leave scheme all helped. But, Ms Conway warned, relative to similar countries, the reality in Australia was not as optimistic as the Booz report indicated. "Australia has a relatively low female workforce participation rate (Australia was ranked 14th in the participation rate of women of the 34 OECD nations in 2010), and a gender pay gap of 17.5% that refuses to budge," she said. "There is a large body of research showing Australia has a long way to go in removing barriers to women’s workforce participation," she said. She said that the high proportion of well-educated women in Australia had not translated to substantial increases in the percentage of women in corporate leadership positions. ''[Which suggests] that we are wasting our female talent," Ms Conway said. The agency’s Australian Census of Women in Leadership will be released next month, and is expected to show that, when it comes to women in corporate Australia, the nation still lags badly behind Forth news New paid maternity leave is not perfect, but it’s a step bySharan Burrow 21JUN05:34AM Print Article Increase text size Decrease text size Share Tweet about this article Share this article on facebook Digg this article Share this article with StumbleUpon Share this article on Kwoff Share this artcile on Reddit Must Reads Dogged Bernardi sticks by bestiality claims 101 Hiding the real climate story in plain view 153 Should Wolverine be the next face of Australia? 22 FILED UNDER: MATERNITY LEAVE, UNIONS 43 COMMENTS As I prepare to pack my bags for the somewhat daunting task of representing almost 200 million workers around the world as head of the global union movement, I’m proud that Australian unions – in partnership with so many other women from our community – have stood together and delivered paid parental leave after 30 years. Helping parents to moments like these When I joined my first union, we had just won maternity leave in our workplace: the basic right for women to return to their job after the birth of their child.  Never did I imagine that it would be three decades and more before we achieved a national paid parental leave scheme. At last - paid parental leave for all working women. Under the scheme, the government will fund 18 weeks leave paid on the federal minimum wage – or up to $10,000 for every woman worker on the birth of their child. This really is an historic achievement that will deliver better health and financial security for working women. Better health, because the first weeks are a critical time for recovery from birth and for the bonding between mother and child. But without paid leave, many mothers are forced to return to work too early. And better financial security, because with two-thirds of Australian women until now deprived of any form of paid parental leave, it has sometimes come down to the choice of having a child or paying the bills. In a country as wealthy and advanced as Australia, no-one should have to make that kind of choice. Travelling the world as I frequently do in my job, it is a matter of some shame and embarrassment that Australia was until now one of only two major developed economies – the other one is the US – not to have a paid parental leave scheme. I’m proud of the role that unions played in seeing this scheme through to fruition. We campaigned both in the community and in workplaces to raise awareness of the issue, put it on the political agenda, and brought the business community on board to build a consensus for change. On Tuesday, women from around Australia presented a petition with over 25,000 signatures calling for the legislation to be passed. Despite some silly filibustering by the Coalition and some, frankly, outrageous grandstanding by Steve Fielding, the groundswell for change was unstoppable. Tony Abbott has been forced to change his tune from the man who said that paid parental leave would happen over his dead body. He now says he’ll impose a multi-billion tax on his big business mates to fund a paid parental leave for women in permanent jobs – even those earning six figure incomes. For those, like me who have been there from the start, it is simply not believable. It is pie in the sky stuff. I’m aware that many women would like to see paid parental leave extended to 26 weeks. This remains our long-term aspiration as well. But those who gripe that this scheme is not comprehensive enough miss its significance. This reform is like Medicare or universal superannuation – once it is there, it can be improved on, but it had to be there in the first place. Unions will be campaigning hard to see employers who benefit from keeping women in the workplace, top up this payment with full income replacement. We will bargain in workplaces to lift paid leave to 26 weeks with an employer contribution on top of the government funding. And we will be vigilant to ensure that those businesses that already provide paid leave do not seek to wind back this entitlement now a national scheme is in place. Tony Abbott and the Liberal Party were slow to come to the debate about paid parental leave. And they’ve missed the point.  Paid parental leave is the tip of what needs to be a revolution of women’s working rights. Women need workplaces that really understand work/life balance – not just pay lip service to it.  This must include the legislated right to request family friendly hours for all people with caring responsibilities.  As well as access to quality, affordable childcare. And after 40 years women still are waiting for pay equity.  I knew this fight would be long – but I didn’t think we would go backwards. Shamefully, the gender pay gap has been increasing in Australia.  We are now where we were nearly 25 years ago – in 1986. Women earn 18 cents less in every dollar than men do.  We need to work 66 more days to get paid the same amount a man does in a year. The widening gap began in 2006 with the introduction of WorkChoices.  Women suffered more under take-it-or-leave-it individual contracts.  Abbott wants to bring these back – I told you he just doesn’t get it. Women are more likely to be casual, in insecure employment, working in small businesses.  And again, Abbott wants to take away their protection from unfair dismissal, he really just doesn’t get. Reducing the pay gap by just 1 per cent would increase GDP per capita by about $260.  That’s $5.5 billion, or 0.5 per cent of total GDP.  To remove the pay gap completely could be worth $93 billion to the Australian economy. So while I leave my job as ACTU President after 10 years – proud that paid parental leave will be in place from January next year – I know working women in Australia have a long way to go.  And I will be there with them, as I also fight to empower women around the globe.  We have so much more to do here in Australia to deliver true workplace equality for women. With paid parental leave we have achieved a significant milestone, and I know the next generation of amazing women will get on with the job. Read More