Labour minister announces new laws to expand maternity benefits, paid leave for fathers

KE­JAN HAYNES

Lead Ed­i­tor- News­gath­er­ing

Labour Min­is­ter Leroy Bap­tiste an­nounced Cab­i­net has ap­proved sweep­ing amend­ments to the Ma­ter­ni­ty Pro­tec­tion Act and the Re­trench­ment and Sev­er­ance Ben­e­fits Act, ex­tend­ing paid leave and work­place pro­tec­tions to fa­thers and adop­tive par­ents while re­mov­ing long-crit­i­cised re­stric­tions on ma­ter­ni­ty ben­e­fits.

Un­der the pro­posed amend­ments to the Ma­ter­ni­ty Pro­tec­tion Act, pa­ter­ni­ty and parental leave would be for­mal­ly recog­nised for the first time, ex­tend­ing en­ti­tle­ments be­yond bi­o­log­i­cal fa­thers to adop­tive par­ents and guardians. Pro­vi­sion would al­so be made for parental leave in cir­cum­stances where a moth­er dies fol­low­ing child­birth.

The amend­ments would in­tro­duce statu­to­ry breast­feed­ing breaks, with paid time off for lac­tat­ing moth­ers to breast­feed or ex­press milk, with­out penal­ty. An­ti-dis­crim­i­na­tion pro­vi­sions would be strength­ened to pro­hib­it dis­missal, de­mo­tion, re­duced pay or loss of op­por­tu­ni­ties linked to preg­nan­cy, ma­ter­ni­ty, pa­ter­ni­ty, parental leave or breast­feed­ing. Preg­nan­cy test­ing for job ap­pli­cants or em­ploy­ees would al­so be banned.

The leg­is­la­tion would guar­an­tee a re­turn to the same job, with the same terms and con­di­tions, af­ter ma­ter­ni­ty, pa­ter­ni­ty or parental leave. In dis­crim­i­na­tion cas­es, the bur­den of proof would shift to em­ploy­ers, with fines avail­able through the In­dus­tri­al Court for breach­es.

Con­tract work­ers would be ex­plic­it­ly cov­ered un­der the Act, with pro­tec­tions against non-re­new­al based on preg­nan­cy or parental leave. Mat­ters aris­ing un­der the Act would al­so be fast-tracked in the In­dus­tri­al Court.

One sig­nif­i­cant change would re­move the cur­rent re­stric­tion lim­it­ing ma­ter­ni­ty ben­e­fits to once every 24 months. Min­is­ter Bap­tiste said women should not be pe­nalised for be­com­ing preg­nant more than once in that pe­ri­od.

“When­ev­er there is preg­nan­cy, they are en­ti­tled to the pro­tec­tion,” he said.

Min­is­ter Bap­tiste an­nounced the de­ci­sions at a press con­fer­ence at UNC head­quar­ters on Sun­day, say­ing the leg­is­la­tion is now be­fore the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al for draft­ing.

The an­nounce­ments were made on a par­ty plat­form amid on­go­ing ques­tions about why pol­i­cy mea­sures are not be­ing out­lined through na­tion­al fo­rums.