The UK Labour party has pledged that it “would make it illegal to make women redundant during pregnancy and for six months after their return to work, as part of a slew of policies to protect and promote gender equality in the recovery from the pandemic.”
According to The Guardian, “The party also called on the government to review the UK’s “failing” shared parental leave policy and to introducing ethnicity pay gap reporting. It has also pledged to modernise equal pay laws to give women the right to know what their male colleagues earn. Labour is calling for the government to disclose the number of jobs that have been created by schemes such as Kickstart, Restart and Jets by sex, ethnicity and disability.”
Guardian reported that “As of March, 2,124,500 women were on furlough, compared with 1,945,600 men, according to government figures, while in May last year the Institute for Fiscal Studies found that mothers were one and a half times more likely than fathers to have either lost their job or quit since the lockdown began.”
A government spokesperson said: “Pregnancy and maternity discrimination is unlawful and has no place in the workplace, which is why we have already announced plans to extend the redundancy protection period afforded to mothers on maternity leave. Our plans will extend the existing redundancy protection to pregnant women and for six months after a mother has returned to work. This will also apply to those taking adoption leave and shared parental leave.”
