Week 13 - Womens Electoral Lobby

Women Leave Work after having a baby

ONE in five women are leaving the workforce after having a child because of inadequate or non-existent paid maternity leave, women's employment experts say.
The 2007 Australian Social Trends study shows that of the 270,000 women who had children while in the workforce in 2005, 72,000 did not use leave to care for their new-born babies and 55,000 did not return to their jobs.
The director of the Centre for Work and Life at the University of South Australia, Barbara Pocock, said figures indicated that the workforce was losing women.
"A significant number of women have a weak attachment to the labour force precisely because they have poor maternity leave provisions," Professor Pocock said. "This is begging, just begging, for policy attention."
The survey also showed that 57 per cent of women did not use paid maternity leave because it was "not available or offered by the employer".
The overwhelming number of women who used paid leave worked in the public sector - some 76 per cent - while just 27 per cent of women in the private sector used similar leave.
Professor Pocock, author of The Labour Market Ate My Babies, said figures suggesting a rise in the number of women entitled to paid maternity leave - up from 36 per cent in 2003 to 41 per cent in 2005 - were deceptive because many of women with access to such leave did not use it because they were beyond child-bearing age. "For them, it's meaningless," Professor Pocock said.

My opinion.

When I had my first child I held down a very good position in the HR Dept at Southcorp Wines, Magill. I took 12 months off and then tried to return to my old position, I had received no pay during Maternity Leave. The position was a very busy one and I had always worked from 8ish til 5.00-5.30 there was no way I wanted to go back to those hours with a baby. I applied to work part time within the company and was knocked back as they did not want part time workers as they said it got to messy and was to hard to organise.

So my opinion on paid maternity leave is this, I think its a great idea and families do deserve it, but unfotunately a lot of companies can not afford to pay for it. Its alright for government bodies and large corporations but for a small business owner this could make or break them. Not sure what the answer is here, I can understand though why women don't return to work. Child care although more reasonable now, is still a big expense, you add transport costs to that and a reduction in your family payment because your earning more, it hardly seems worth all the stress.

WOMEN AND ACTIVISM

Then - what
- peace, free speech, political or womens rights, price control for gas/cost of living, proper kindergartens and teachers.
- solidarity between the women for the Fairley case.
- 1969 equal pay issue
- education - smaller classes, there were hardly any kindergartens at all, more buildings & teachers.
- child care
- reproductive rights
Then - how
- marches,
- housewives association, talking against the state.
- during cold war stood in the street, they were spat on and abused.
- lobby David Jones and Myers to get rid of war toys,
- songs - folk, aprons with slogans, they would door knock

Today - what
- child care
- paid maternity leave
- refugees, housing, environment
- voilence against women and children is still a problem
- reclaim the night
- work - AWA
- cancer awareness, health and body image.
- aged drivers.

Today - how
- civil disobedience
- boycotting (items/Nestle)
- lobbying (lobby your mp)
- non voilent confrontation
- terrorism, media activisim (eg speech bubble)
- protest music
- voluntary simplicity - seachange, hillchange
- strike action
- craftivism - networking

1. Australian Women Work
When the UAW was formed in 1950, the dominant view was that women's place was in the home, with children. At the same time women were welcome in the factories as a source of cheap labour. There was no day-long child care. Whole suburbs were without kindergartens and libraries. Equal Pay was opposed. Contraceptive advice was difficult to obtain. Abortion was a crime. Indigenous Australians were not citizens and White Autralia ruled supreme. The Cold War was at its height.
The women who founded the UAW had grown up in an Australia of hard times, of deprivation and loss, arising out of two world wars and a devastating economic depression.
The UAW founders wanted a world which minimised the risk of war through disarmament and a society where wealth and opportunity were more equally distributed. They were prepared to work publicly for their goals, not just by attending meetings, writing letters and lobbying politicians, but by making themselves visible on the streets.

2. Current Campaigns
Elimination of violence against women
Abortion law reform and reproductive rights
Affordable public housing and health
Rights for asylum seekers

3. Ecofeminism
Ecofeminism is a social and political movement which unites environmentalism and feminism[1], with some currents linking deep ecology and feminism.[2] Ecofeminists argue that a relationship exists between the oppression of women and the degradation of nature, and explore the intersectionality between sexism, the domination of nature, racism, speciesism, and other characteristics of social inequality. Some current work emphasizes that the capitalist and patriarchal system is based on triple domination of the "Southern people" (those people who live in the Third World, the majority of which are south of the First World), women, and nature.

4.
They campaign for issues involving third world countries, for racism, feminism and to save the environment.