Parents 'strike' across Scotland demanding stronger paternity leave and flexible working rights

Thousands of parents across the UK have gone on strike to demand stronger paternity leave and flexible working rights for families.

The first ever Parent Strike saw campaigners attend protests around the UK on Thursday, with events in Edinburgh and Glasgow taking place alongside gatherings in cities including London, Cardiff and Belfast.

The campaign is calling for changes including flexible working by default and paternity leave set at six weeks for at least 90% of pay, as a UK Government review on parental leave nears its final stages.

Campaigners say change is necessary to make parenting sustainable in the modern world, when most parents are working full-time and still struggling financially.

Dozens of campaigners attended the event outside the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, where they listened to speeches and were led in song by maternal mental health choir the Singing Mamas.

Many carried placards with slogans such as “Two weeks isn’t enough”, “Let’s talk about flex baby” and “Real men care for their children”.

The events in Edinburgh and Glasgow were organised by Dads Rock and supported by the Fathers Network, Pregnant Then Screwed Scotland and Flexible Working Scotland.

Research from Fathers Network Scotland has found that due to financial pressure, only one in four dads surveyed had been able to take more than two weeks paternity leave.

One in five dads took no paternity leave at all.

Steven Lovejoy was one of the parents outside Holyrood.

Stephen Lovejoy was at the campaign at Holyrood STV News

He said: “It has so many benefits. It’s good for workplaces, for allowing women to go back to work earlier if they want to and also giving dads the flexibility to balance work and childcare. But most importantly, I think it’s really good for kids who benefit from having two actively involved parents, who both have the time and space to be there, particularly right at the beginning when it is often really hard and really difficult.

“The experience my wife and I had was that she needed me there and my daughter needed me there in the beginning and I wasn’t able to be there as much as I would have liked to.

“I only had to two weeks paternity leave. I took two weeks’ annual leave as well, but even then, that wasn’t enough.”

Edinburgh mother June Jamieson says flexible working must be supported.

Her former employer refused her request to slightly adjust her hours when she had her son so she could drop him off at childcare.

She said: “It was awful because what should have been a lovely time, the start of my child’s life, just enjoying that time off with him, nurturing him, was spent applying for jobs and going to interviews.

“I feel that things are moving in the right direction, I think Covid, if nothing else, absolutely illustrated that there is definitely more than one way to do things.

“People can work in a hybrid manner, and people can be productive.”

She is now in a new job with an employer who supports flexible working.

Graeme Downie, the Labour MP for Dunfermline and Dollar, is a supporter of the campaign.

“Dads want to be involved. And it’s also really unfair that all of the pressure, frankly, falls on mums. Society makes it that way. We have to start to tackle that,” he said.

“One of the ways we can tackle that is by making sure we have proper paternity leave in this country.

“At the moment we have two weeks paternity leave, which is far too low a level and for far too little a time. We have to do much more on that. That encourages dads to get involved, it encourages mums to have the flexibility that they should have to go back to work sooner, or just really so that families can choose how to raise their children themselves and give them that flexibility.

“That leads to better health, better care for dads, better for mums and better for kids and, frankly, better for society as well.”

A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “The Scottish Government and STUC have called for employment law, including the provision of maternity, paternity and shared parental leave and pay to be devolved to the Scottish Parliament as it is currently reserved to Westminster.

“Meanwhile, the Scottish Government continues to use the Fair Work approach to seek to improve workers’ rights and protections.

“The UK Government’s Employment Rights Act, and the wider Make Work Pay programme, align closely with our Fair Work agenda. We have long called for an increase to statutory provision and will continue to engage with the UK Government on this through their current Parental Leave and Pay review to protect Scottish workers’ rights.

“The Scottish Government is committed to supporting parents and families which is why we are transforming childcare in Scotland during this Parliament, providing support to every family with children from nine months old to the end of primary school.”

The UK Government’s Minister for the future of work Kate Dearden said: “The first few weeks of being a parent can be both some of the most rewarding and challenging.

“We are determined to make sure dads and partners can be there to provide support as much as possible, especially in those crucial first few weeks and months when mums are often recovering from childbirth.

“That’s why we’ve already changed the law to give 32,000 more partners access to paternity leave, and are carrying out a full review of parental pay and leave to ensure we reflect the realities of modern work and childcare so that parents can spend as much time doing what matters most – caring for their baby.”