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A regional council has lost its battle to withhold paid maternity leave after the union took the fight to the industrial commission.
Key points:
- Mareeba Shire Council argued it could not afford to provide its female staff with access to paid maternity leave
- The Queensland Industrial Relations Commission full bench ruled maternity leave offered community benefit
- Parental advocates say Australia's parental leave provisions still need to improve
Staff at Mareeba Shire Council in Far North Queensland will retain the right to 10 weeks maternity leave at full pay after giving birth, or 20 weeks at half pay, after the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission's full bench ruled in their union's favour.
The council's chief executive Peter Franks has defended his decision to oppose paternity maternity leave, saying it offered no benefit to the community.
Mr Franks said his organisation would "live with" the outcome but maintained it was something the community would struggle to afford at a time of rising interest rates and materials costs.
"Asking the ratepayer to pay for people to go off and have paid maternity leave over and above the other benefits they receive at council comes at a cost," he said.
"And there is very little benefit to the ratepayers."
An 'employee's market'
The council's opposition has surprised Queensland's Services Union and parent advocacy groups, who say there is a compelling case for employers to offer better entitlements to expectant parents.
Georgie Dent, executive director of The Parenthood, said paid parental leave was "first and foremost a health policy" that ensured the wellbeing of mothers and newborn babies.
She said in an "employee's market", it was more common to see organisations improve their parental entitlements.
"It does surprise me to see a council look at this," she said.
"It is actually cheaper to pay existing employees some leave and to give them that time off and for them to return to the workplace than it is for them to constantly recruit and replace and bring new people in and invest in their skills and their training."
Different councils have different approaches
Most Queensland councils offer some form of paid parental leave in addition to the minimum wage national scheme, although several, mostly small rural councils, do not.
Some councils have provisions that allow employees to take extra annual or long-service leave after giving birth.
A small number of long-standing Mareeba Shire employees already had paid maternity leave under an old workplace agreement that dated back to before the council's 2014 split from the Tablelands Regional Council, while more recent arrivals did not.
Mr Franks said his council had "a really motivated workforce" and "a very good corporate culture".
He claimed "the vast majority of staff were quite happy for [maternity leave] to be dropped" from the council's certified agreement but that it became a "union issue".
"We have had very few people take maternity leave [and] half the people we granted it to never returned to work," Mr Franks said.
Australia still behind internationally
Ms Dent said employer-funded parental leave was still important for families, even as the federal government expands the national paid parental leave scheme from 18 weeks to 26 weeks over the next four years.
"In the OECD, the average length of paid leave parents have access to is more than 50 weeks," Ms Dent said.
"When we ultimately get to 26 weeks, it's clear we're still a long way short of the OECD average, and our federal scheme was always introduced to work in partnership with employers coming to the table as well."
Ben Jones from the Services Union said the case was "a bit concerning in terms of the message that the council's stance would put out to the community".
"Thankfully, it's a fairly rare occurrence, and we couldn't understand the fervour with which Mareeba pursued it," he said.
"What we're finding across all local government authorities at the moment is attraction and retention of good staff is not where it needs to be," he said.