1. Maternity Leave and Beyond Marian Baird Women + Work Research Group School of Business University of Sydney

2. Parental Leave: Pre-WorkChoices PMLPPLLength Fed Awards1144912 weeks/ 1 week NSW Awards60229 weeks/ 1 week EBAs10%6%6 weeks/ 1 week AWAs7%4%6 weeks/ 1 week Company Policies ?%?% 0–14+ weeks?

3. Family Provisions Test Case 8 August 2005  10 days carer’s leave  Right to request 104 weeks unpaid parental leave; simultaneous unpaid parental leave for 8 weeks and to return p/t until child reaches school age.  Annual leave carried forward for 2 years, 10 annual leave in separate days.

4. Test Case vs WorkChoices  433/20% of federal awards were varied to include test case standard before WorkChoices.  Vic, Qld, NSW, SA, WA, Tas introduced provisions via legislation or general order for State employees. (Sue Williamson, PhD student)

5. Post-WorkChoices 27 March 2006  Australian Fair Pay and Conditions Standard – 52 weeks unpaid parental leave, 4 weeks annual leave (2 weeks traded), 10 days carer’s leave, ordinary hours of work and minimum pay.  Award rationalisation process to reduce number and ‘merge’ contents.  Preserved entitlements vs rationalised awards or new agreements for new employees.  Possibility of two-tier provisions in work places.

6. Post-WorkChoices  Prospects for improvements through bargaining?  Prospects for improvements via business case arguments?

7. Family-friendly Policy and Practice at the Workplace Level Complex interactions between:  Supervisors  Interaction with other policies – e.g. pay structures; ‘manning’ levels; accounting methods.  Employee agency – security; union representation; gender; autonomy; position etc.  Organisational Norms – the ‘ideal worker’ and resilience of traditional male model

8. Observations  Parental leave policies are accessed by:  Women – reinforcing gendered divisions of labour at home and work  White collar workers – reinforcing differences with blue-collar workers  Women – are both family centred and career centred.

9. Conclusions  Predicted parental leave and f-f outcomes - contingent on business needs rather than employee or social needs. Increasing divergence, variability and inequity.  Need to:  Continue to monitor impact of changes in regulatory regime on availability of entitlements to parents.  More deeply interrogate notion of the ‘ideal worker’.  Give renewed attention to job size, job design and work organisation.