Saturday, July 24, 2010

EU plans longer maternity leave

David Charter, Brussels & , : {}

A large prolongation of maternity leave opposite Europe was last night voted for by the Womens Rights Committee of the European Parliament to have it mandatory for employers to compensate mothers for a smallest of twenty weeks on full pay.

But the move, that would have a thespian outcome in Britain where the initial 6 weeks of maternity leave are now at 90 per cent of pay, will have to be debated by the full council subsequent month and faces unbending antithesis from part of states prior to apropos law.

Current UK manners give profound women a full year off, with usually 6 weeks paid at 90% of the mothers normal pay, followed by 33 weeks on Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP) of �123 a week - 55% higher than ill pay. The rest is unpaid.

Under existent EU manners concluded in 1992, smallest maternity leave is set at fourteen weeks, with compensate for the generation to be no reduce than illness compensate in the part of state concerned.

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The British Government warned that a big climb in paid maternity leave desert in the UK could dissapoint the ethereal change struck by the stream inhabitant system, whilst the British Chamber of Commerce pronounced that the proposals contingency be overturned.

Lord Young, the Employment Relations Minister, said: The Commissions proposals are usually at an early stage, but we do have concerns and are lobbying tough to get the right understanding for the UK.

We already have a inexhaustible complement that is improved than most EU countries and functions well, balancing the needs of commercial operation and workers.

He went on: More than 4 in five women take all of their paid maternity leave, and the immeasurable infancy lapse to work with the same employer afterwards.

A estimable enlarge in maternity leave paid at full or near-full compensate risks undermining this ethereal change at a time when economies opposite the EU can slightest means it.

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