What the hell was that last paragraph about mjpb? You were joking right? Only it's really hard to tell if you were joking or just posting gibberish that you thought meant something.

Back to the point I've made previously re industrial agreements.

A document was circulated recently by my union as part of the negotiations for an agreement. Provisions the union was proposing. I've extracted the provisions most relevant to parenting from the proposal and at the end of the document some proposed alterations which might work better.

Work Life Balance
7. Increase paid maternity leave to 16 weeks, (including ability to access 32 weeks at half pay).
8. Increase unpaid maternity leave to 2 years.
9. Paid Leave to attend IVF program.
10. Increase paid paternity leave to 4 weeks (including ability to access 8 weeks at half pay).
11. If multiple births occur the period of maternity/paternity leave is to be doubled.

Other
10. Increase the number of family leave days.

My proposed rewording of relevant items
7. Paid newborn parenting leave for one parent to 16 weeks, (including ability to access 32 weeks at half pay).
8. Unpaid newborn parenting leave to 2 years.
10. Paid newborn parenting leave for both parents to 4 weeks (including ability to access 8 weeks at half pay).

The intent is to support the provisions the union was seeking but allow the decision about who takes on the full time care role to be made by the family rather than by gender based leave provisions. A stat dec or similar may be required to ensure that families don't double dip (both parents taking the extended paid leave from different employers), the current gender based system stops that but means those who employ new mothers carry additional cost for doing so).

I also suggested a removal of the differentiation between full and part time work so that a spread of hours can be negotiated rather than forced into brackets which may force less work hours than needed. If an employee can meet their parenting committments by working a 1/2 hour less a day it's silly to require them to work 10 hours less a week to fit a bracket. Employer and employee both miss out.

R0bert

MJBP
just because that intellectual midget BUGSY doesn't 'get' your last paragraph does not meen that no one did:)
Actually I found your post rather profound. 1 Cor 1:21 comes to mind re your critics.

OOOOOK... BUGSY..I apologise :) your an I.M. at all.. but I'll bet ur reading this now 0_-

Robert. umm... those thoughts about materinity leave etc were wonderful.. in fact they would be perfectly suited for the Marxist Utopia we were once told was good for us all :) no..I'm not saying your heart skin color is a bit on the red side, I'm just trying to get my head around the following:

1/ To afford such things, we must have a thriving business with BIG profits.
2/ To obtain those BIG profits we must either have
a)a well patented product,
b)have copied someone elses good product (saving us the R&D) and making a killing in the market with our version.
c)be competitive based on our highly efficient operation, and be immune to competitors like China and their 'enlightened' labor rates.
d) have blown up the factory of our competitors such that we are the only player.
e) Have destroyed our competition by other scurrelous means.

Aside from that.. in this competitive world.. who the heck is going to pay for all this ?

I've got more work than I can poke 10 sticks at this year.. but will I "employ" people ? not a chance.. keep it with son and daughter.. wife etc...employ them... and when I can't cope any more I'll contract it out to mass production leaving very minimal labor at my end..and still keep it in house.

FEMINISM.... I repeat.. is not really they key issue, its simply loving each other without making gender any more of an issue than the physical constraints dictate.

BD, I'm not trying to argue the merits or otherwise of the leave, rather to ensure that what is available is not portioned out by gender. I've taken what the union has proposed and reworded it to leave the decision about who takes the leave to the family concerned.

Existing structures pretty much force mothers to be the prime carers in the early years (and deprive fathers of the opportunity). That should be a decision left to the family and dependant on their values and circumstances.

What I've proposed should entail no additional cost for employers over what the union is seeking (except for employers with predominately male workforces). That does not imply that what the union is seeking is fair or reasonable but rather that my interests are in removing artificial gender based restrictions. The only ones who are harmed by the rewording are those who think that gender should be the issue.

R0bert

Fair enough Rob :) point taken.

The next thing we should discuss is 'The relevance and viability of Unions in a real competitive world' :)

putting it another way.. "Do Unions live in Fantasy Land"?

or..

"Have Unions passed their Use-By Date" ?

or..

BELLY for 'Union Ombudsman" :) He'll sort em out.

In response to the original post...

Well, for a start, I don't find the "bra burners" annoying at all. I agree that many battles have been one, but, by and large, it was those second generation feminists who won them for us. I am humbled by and grateful to the women who worked in the civil rights movements of the 60s and 70s. Besides, it just seems good manners to me to honour them - it is to their credit that I earn good money, and travelled alone, and studied, and can do what I like. Clearly, they got some stuff wrong, but it's hard work to build a new culture, and glitches are to be expected.

Nor do I think we are "well past" them. There's work. Raunch culture appears to have replaced housewifery in rating women's appearance over their accomplishments. There are still not enough women in parliament, or in senior political staffer or public sector positions, or in business or on boards - we are underrepresented in all those arenas. Then there's childcare, of course, as you've discussed here, and which, in part, causes the problems described in the preceeding sentence.

Of course, we also have much to celebrate. We must also be sensitive to impinging on the rights of men, and making sure boys are not left behind in the classroom. We must be aware that men in the lowest socio-economic group are now the most deeply unhappy and terminally single in society. We must work with men for equity for all.

Having said that, may I note, without being incendiary but purely for the irony of it, how quickly this thread turned in to a conversation between men?