A few weeks ago, I caused a little discussion in my office when I said that I could see how a small business employer may not want to employ women due to the risk of them going on maternity leave.
Feel the steam rising inside you? before you explode think about what I am saying. Think about manageing risk. Think about what an employer of a small business is trying to achieve when they take on a member of staff.
And then today I read an article on the Devil’s Kitchen whihc mentions a UKIP member’s comments. Other previous posts on the devils kitchen should be equally inflamitory.
Ah, the joy of debate, eh? Of course discrimination is wrong. But life is about balances. The difficult bit is to look behind the reasons for a statement. And you are probably misunderstanding what I mean right now….
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Well that’s exactly why you need the legislation isn’t it? I don’t see where there’s any “debate”. You want to do one thing for financial reasons. This is unfair so society legislates against it. So you have to save up for it or face the courts. Tough cheese.
Of course it society were “As It Should Be” then paternity leave would be pretty much as long as maternity leave. And indeed it looks like things are heading this way. So maybe it’ll all be a total non-issue in 20 years.
Or maybe in the name of equality, employers will discriminate against anyone who looks like they might be planning on starting a familly in th near future. That would at least be sexual equality
Thinking on from that point, there is an interesting moral conflict coming up here. The Government takes steps to persuade people to have children. People get worried if the birth rate drops (because in many ways our ecconomy requires a growing population to sustain it – i.e. “National Insurence”) We must approach soon the point at which a growing population is unsustainable or atleast starts to cause too much pain in itself (supporting all those in education or running out of housing – although both of these are being increased by other reasons to of course)
“anyone who looks like they might be planning”
Age discrimination.