A very odd view for a person who makes out he is both a federalist and socialist.
Totally disagree with you flecc. Any firm can cope with granting maternity leave. If they can't they shouldn't be in business, big or small.
A person's career spans 35/40 years, having one out for having a child is going to have little effect. It's an excuse to carry on old fashioned dogma. At what point in your argument does maternity leave become acceptable. 500 employees? A thousand.? By your reasoning no women of child bearing age would be employed. Think you are stuck in 50,s flecc. Time to move on. Get organised, efficient and expect people to do same.
Yes, it might be an inconvenience and comes at a cost to our capitalist way of thinking.. But so what.. Or perhaps your business owner should roll up in his flash car and sack all women between 16 and 40..Think you are stuck in victorian times, never mind 50's.
Why the gross exaggerations? No, some very small firms cannot cope, the government has set 4 employees as the level, but it can vary slightly. Some with two can cope, some with several might not be able to due to different specialisations. The great majority of companies have no problem.
I'm not speaking of hypotheticals but from experience of employing staff in widely varying numbers in differing jobs. For example in one job over a decade my 24 direct staff controlling over 200 others were a mix of both genders but always more female than male. Not by design, just employed on grounds of suitability and one being away was never a problem due to the structure I instituted.
But in contrast another job, despite my having a number of manual staff only had two office staff doing similar jobs. Both were salaried females and on equal pay of course, fitting with your concept of fairness, but it was very far from fair. One was married with a child and needed to take numerous days or part days off for various doctor, school and other reasons. Later there were marital difficulties which led to more absences.
That not only thrust a larger workload onto the other member but also my having to fill in as well instead of doing what I should have been. That's what your concept of fairness leads to, considerable unfairness with the two office staff carrying very unequal workloads over time but for equal pay since you want that as well. If replacing that married person at any time of course I'd aim for a single mature person since I'd be an idiot not to. That's horses for courses, the right tool for the job, and nothing to do witn unfair discrimination or outdated attitudes.
In the latter you are being insulting since I brought modern practices well ahead of their time to three different old fashioned companies. That included everyone at all levels being on first name terms instead of Sir and Ma'am being used, also getting rid of separate management and staff toilets that I found in two companies, also getting rid of discriminatory clock cards and weekly employments. There was never anything old fashioned about any of my employment of people and two of my former manual employees are close friends to this day despite it being 28 years since I last employed them both. One even sends me a birthday card* every year, how many ex bosses can say that!
*That originates in my practice of birthday and Christmas cards for my employees, a small personal touch. Hardly Dickensian.
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