Veteran trade unionist Vincent Morrison on Tuesday branded the Government’s decision to increase maternity leave from two months to 60 days and introduce paternity leave as “welcome, but too little, too late”, especially for women who, over the years, were only granted 40 days when the law already provided for the 90 days now being dangled.

“The Maternity Leave Act provides for three months’ maternity leave with two months at full pay, so the fact that the public sector was so much behind, 40 days, tells me that the Government was breaching its own laws. So the fact that the Ministry of Finance decides to correct the breach is good, but what about all those ladies who would have gotten less than what the law stipulates over the years?” Morrison said when contacted by the Jamaica Observer.

“That is something we have to contemplate. I don’t think we can talk about retroactivity there, but it is sad that the Act which was promulgated in the 70s, with a lot of fanfare, that the females did not benefit to the fullest,” he said further.

Morrison’s comments came in the wake of an announcement Tuesday by Finance Minister Dr Nigel Clarke indicating the Government’s decision to update the terms of maternity leave, introduce a provision for paternity leave, and introduce leave for adoptive parents in the public service as components of the State’s public sector compensation exercise.

As such, Clarke said the Government intends to update the Public Sector Staff Orders of 2004 to reflect the increase in maternity leave from 40 days to three calendar months; introduce paternity leave, for the first time in the public service, for fathers of newborns, for a specific time and on specific terms to be finalised; and introduce family leave for adoptive parents who are bringing a new child into the home.

“We are working to modernise our public service. Modernisation is multifaceted. It includes pursuing efficiency and simplification, it embraces fairness and equity in compensation, it involves the application of technology to boost access and productivity, it requires better customer service, and it also embraces changes in terms and conditions that better reflect our values. To give effect to these changes the appropriate circular will be sent out to members of the public service by September 30th,” Clarke said at a mid-afternoon news conference.

Responding further to the announcement, Morrison, who heads the Union of Clerical, Administrative and Supervisory Employees, said, “We welcome the decision to get in line with what the law says — three months, three pregnancies, we certainly welcome that. In terms of the paternity leave, there are other companies in the private sector who give up to five days. Again, I think the public sector is behind in terms of the days workers are given, either by policy or collective labour agreements between the unions and management, but we certainly welcome the idea that this Government is finally getting on board with respect to paternity leave,” Morrison noted.

“We do believe that every worker… every man in Jamaica, when his wife is about to deliver his child, he should be at the bedside giving her support, he should be in the house giving support,” Morrison added.

Jamaica Civil Service Association (JCSA) President O’Neil Grant, who said the entity campaigned for the measures in 2019, welcomed the announcement.

“We are quite happy that the Government has moved in the direction that we have been asking them to by even ensuring that even persons who are adoptive parents would be able to have the time to care for the adopted member of their family,” he told the Observer.

On the issue of paternity leave, he said: “What we used to get in the public sector was compassionate leave, where a gentleman could have gotten up to five days, but it wasn’t enough, because you have women who would have gone through difficult circumstances in the delivery of their child and it puts a significant stress on the mother to the extent that some would have had to take vacation and no-pay leave, so we are happy.”

He said, while the association had been expecting to have more discussions with the Government before the announcement was made, it was looking forward to further dialogue to “hammer out the details”.

In the meantime, Grant said based on discussions, fathers would not be getting the same amount of time off work as mothers.

“It would have to be a shorter time, but not sure how much shorter; we don’t know. We want to see the details of what the Ministry of Finance is going to be putting in the policy,” he said.

A 2020 online survey conducted by the Hugh Shearer Labour Studies Institute at The University of the West Indies Open Campus, in collaboration with the JCSA, showed that more than 90 per cent of State employees in Jamaica would support the idea of paid paternity leave in the public sector.

In that study, a total of 58 per cent of the respondents believe that fathers should be able to benefit from paid paternity leave as much as three times in any one employment, while 18 per cent believe it should be one to two times in any one employment.

Just over half of the respondents, 52 per cent, believe that fathers should be granted at least six weeks’ paid paternity leave, whereas 40 per cent believe it should be between three and four weeks.

A total of 86 per cent of the respondents believe that unmarried men in common law unions should be allowed to benefit from paternity leave, while 84 per cent believe that the spouse should be declared beforehand.

However, when it comes to visiting partners, the majority, 58 per cent, do not believe they should benefit, while 42 per cent believe they should. But more millennials, 43 per cent as against 31 per cent of Baby Boomers and Generation X, believe that visiting partners should benefit from paternity leave.