Businesses ‘would find it hard to cope’
Saturday 23rd April 2011, 2:59PM BST.
Ray Shead, Chamber president.
EMPLOYERS would find it hard to cope if Jersey had a law on maternity leave in line with the UK, the Chamber of Commerce has said.
Instead, president of the Chamber Ray Shead believes that current proposals to introduce a minimum 18 weeks leave for women who have just had a baby, with just two weeks of that paid leave, are more realistic and suitable for a small economy like Jersey.
He added that the plans, which are due to be brought to the States before October’s elections, were needed to bring Jersey into the 21st century.
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Whatever the rights or wrongs maternity leave may be, Ray Shea’s message is clear, Jersey cannot compete!
No Jersey can compete, but not with the current management.
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shall we bing back the treadmill ray.
you could run a couple of lightbulbs or a laptop with their toils.
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I feel for both sides having been through maternity leave with no pay but working for a small business.
Of the 6,000 or so companies in Jersey over 4,000 of them employ five or less people.
It isn’t all about finance, there are a huge amount of small businesses in Jersey who just couldn’t cope with paying 26 weeks maternity.
If you have three people in your business and one takes half a year paid leave that person will need replacing. You will need to pay over the odds to fulfil a short term contract with a local person. Therefore your wage bill will rise by almost 20%. In addition, whilst most pregnancies are not a surprise to the bearer, they are a surprise to the employer and the business upheaval would be substantial as I suspect when there are only 3 of you in a firm, no-one is swinging the lead.
Like it or not, any increase will lead to a discrimination against the very people the law is trying to assist – working mothers.
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With my employers the work of those on maternity leave is covered by another member of staff with no extra pay or gratitude from the employer or member of stuff when they return from maternity leave
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We don’t need incoming do-gooders stirring up trouble like this. If the UK is so brilliant, why come here? Just stay over there. What this does show is that we need some immigration control. Jersey people are out of work and now they are trying to shaft small local businesses as well.
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Well perhaps Jersey is unsustainable and at best is technically broke. If it can’t compete, it should not try to compete, economic activity may simply have to stop altogether. Rising fuel prices, rising compliance costs and dwindling economic activity spell the end of a society. It’s a complete paradigm shift and the sooner Jersey accepts this the better. Jersey is little more than an expensive excuse for a modern society. Its going broke and the sooner people accept this the better for all concerned.
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Scouser – what a load of twaddle! At least (unlie all major European countries) we do have money in the piggy bank.
http://money.cnn.com/2011/04/21/news/economy/deere_ceo_allen_deficit_economic_shock/index.htm
We might spend a huge amount of time moaning about our politicians, and much of it is justifies, but we could be in a lot worse shape!
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The Chamber would disagree with giving any employee rights that cost money, as this is run by narrow minded greedy business men who feel sorry for themselves and never stop whinging.
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#3 True Cathy.
Some people are living in cloud cuckoo land just rubbing their hands together thinking “oh, goody, I’ll get paid to be off now.” What they are failing to consider is where the money is actually going to come from.
Here’s a clue for them, it WON’T come from the boss’s personal salary or the shareholders
Have the States even considered means-testing for maternity pay? Have they considered looking at people’s tax returns from the years prior to the woman getting pregnant?
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#8 Can you explain why being paid to NOT work should ever be classed as a ‘right’?
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9 Leah – a woman can only get her maternity benefits if she has paid enough into social security to earn them. They don’t just hand it out if you haven’t worked for it. If you don’t put enough in, you don’t get it back, simple.
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#11 And that’s fine, as long as everyone else gets the same level of contributions back in some form or another (maybe in addition to their pension, for instance). Also they’re not talking about the States paying maternity, they’re talking about the employers paying it. Even if there is no paid leave it will still cost employers, the result being that male employees will be preferred.
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