...furthermore, grn, if that's your argument against my original comment, then your real point is the amount of money and not the points mentioned in the article.

Actually RenegadeScience, there are plenty of us who would choose to cash in our Long Service Leave provisions if the choice was there. For those of us who change jobs regularly, LSL provisions mean nothing.

And also for the record, LSL is usually unfunded (in an accounting sense) in the various public services. Most private enterprises have fully funded LSL provisions

It is crystal clear RenegadeScience that you have never run a small business, nor have you bothered to understand how they work.

>>The comparison, grn, is not bogus. It is all about an unfunded liability that is expected of businesses.<<

Long service leave has been part of the Australian business scene for a while, and has already been built into the cost structure.

A business has to start accruing LSL liability from the fifth anniversary of the employee's start date. This is taken through the P&L as a cost to the business, so decreases the profits of the company, but does not count against tax. So if you are earning $60,000p.a., after five years I take a non-tax-deductible hit on my P&L of $5,000, and continue to accrue every month thereafter.

This is called "funding". I have set aside the amount required to pay out your LSL at the appropriate point in the future. It is sensible business practice, so it doesn't greatly surprise me to hear it isn't followed in the Public Service.

My question to you is this: how do I accommodate paid maternity leave in a similarly responsible manner?

Do I automatically assume that every female worker is likely to require it, and add this to the costs of every one that I hire? Do I take the actuarial approach, and determine a statistical average across the women in my employ? Because sure as eggs, I'm not allowed to ask them before I hire them, am I?

I'd also like to point out that your argument that I must protest an existing perquisite in order to be consistent in my opposition to a brand new one, is a strange form of logic indeed.

I'm very interested than ASymeonakis, Celivia, Fractelle and others so pro maternity leave are absent from this thread. I think the article makes a lot of excellent points, and was waiting for a rebuttal.

I think it's a pretty water tight case against PML.

The silence is deafening.

Yes, I had noticed the gender of the debaters and the thrust of the arguement and think that for those posters for whom this is not a dry academic arguement the thought of arguing against such entrenched positions is just too hard.

Usual Suspect describes this article as a water tight case against PML.

Really? It just looks like another whinge from business that it will cost too much. They say that about every move like LSL, sick leave, the 48 hour week, the 40 hour week, the 38 hour week, etc and now PML.

No doubt the sky will fall in just as it did with all those other changes. Mass unemployment, inflation, starvation.

The point is that none of this will happen. Business needs to be forced to accept PML. It will happen. It is social justice for a start.

And since workers create all the wealth in society why not reward them with some small benefit like PML? It will benefit capital too. Happy workers are productive workers.