Maternity leave in
THE International Labour Organization (ILO) is on the point of modifying a convention on the right to maternity leave on the pretext that the existing convention was ratified by a small number of coun-
Bordeaux and Geneva. In May a meeting was held in Copenhagen to prepare the march to Brussels which will take place on October
14. A European platform has already been adopted. * danger tries. number 103 on the protection of mater- -N 1952, the ILO adopted Convention nity. It fixed the following principles: the right to at least 12 weeks maternity leave, the right to medical benefit, absolute protection against dismissal during maternity leave. In June 2000 this Convention is to be revised. Certain revisions suggested by the employers represent a questioning of its spirit.
Thus, according to the Convention, maternity leave "applies to women employed in industrial work as well as women employed in the non-industrial and agricultural sectors, including women working at home". The draft revision would allow a member state "to exclude completely or partially from the field of application... limited categories of workers or enterprises".
### Exclusion
Some states could thus exclude certain categories of wage-earner from the enjoyment of maternity leave! The same applies pure fiction. The revision also opens the way to the dismissal of workers during their maternity leave. Whereas the Convention stipulated that it "is illegal for employers to give notice of dismissal during the said absence [maternity leave or complementary leave]", the draft revision proposes "it is forbidden for the employer to lay off a woman during her pregnancy ... except for reasons unlinked to pregnancy, childbirth and its continuations or breast feeding". In short, dismissal would be possible, it would be enough to search for another reason.
Maternity leave is applied in a very disparate way: certain • countries, like Germany, grant 14 weeks at 100% of salary, France 16 weeks at 84%. Other countries like Portugal grant 12 weeks. The women of Switzerland or the countries of the South are deprived of rights. But the suggested revision of the Convention, far
Women * from helping to improve the current situation, opens the way to a levelling down.
In this case, as with the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), only Coordination for the World March have taken up this question. In an appeal they call for the maintenance of the spirit of ILO Convention 103 and demand "a minimum of 16 weeks maternity level; the maintenance of maternity leave for all categories of wage-earner, without exception, including homeworkers and independent workers; the maintenance of the absolute impossibility of dismissal; the maintenance of existing legislation where it is more favourable than the ILO Convention".* For further details fax 33/0 1 43 56 36 48 or e-mail <colcadac@club-internet.fr>
Women on the march acainst poverty and violence!
to the duration of maternity leave. The
Convention stipulates: "the duration of this
ON March 8 last, numerous initiatives launched the World March leave will be 12 weeks at least ... the duration of the leave obligatorily taken after of women against poverty and violence.
childbirth... will in no case be lower than 6 weeks"
Some 4,200 groups are participating in the March, representing
In the proposed revision this is no
153 countries of which 90 have set up national coordinations, a longer stipulated: "maternity leave must measure of the success already enjoyed by this initlatise, first floatinclude a period of obligatory leave, whose ed as an idea at the Peking conference.
duration and distribution must be deter-
In May alone there was a national march in Burkina Faso, a week mined by each member". Another reason for concern: the recommendation which of activities and meetings on the status of women in Niger, and accompanies the draft revision of the connational demonstrations in Haiti and Peru. The big meeting will be vention stipulates; "As much as possible, on October /7 in New York, where the marchers have set the measures should be taken to ensure that the objective of gaining at least 10,000 signatures in support of their woman can freely exert her choice with demands. In Burope, meetings have already taken place in Paris, regard to the time she intends to take the non-obligatory part of her maternity leave, before or after childbirth".
In countries with high unemployment rates, the freedom of the wage-earner is a
35
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