On Saturday,
June 3, the International Labour Office (ILO) Maternity
Protection Committee voted to increase maternity leave to
14 weeks. (The vote was 111,061 for, 97,478 against, and
6,392 abstaining.) Maternity leave was set at 12 weeks in
1919, and this is the first change in 81 years. Although
it is a move in the right direction, there is still a need
to bring maternity protection provisions in line with current
health recommendations as presented to the Committee by
WHO and UNICEF. Yet to be debated are the provisions on
paid breastfeeding breaks and workplace facilities that
enable women to sustain exclusive breastfeeding while at
work.
The Maternity
Protection Coalition wants to see that protection for
breastfeeding mothers will be strengthened, not "bargained"
away.
A raw deal
for women
For the last
81 years, breastfeeding was a part of "maternity."
The first Maternity Protection Convention No 3, passed in
1919, established the ILO's basic principles of job-protected
maternity leave, income replacement for mothers on leave,
and health protection for mothers and babies. Convention
3 called for two half hour nursing breaks for women returning
to work after leave. The first Maternity Protection Convention
revision in 1952 strengthened the standard by adding the
requirement that nursing breaks be paid and counted as working
time. But soon after the second revision began in 1998 women
discovered that nursing breaks and other protection for
breastfeeding mothers had been laid on the table as a "bargaining
chip".
A fair deal
for women workers
What has changed
since 1919? Not women's biology. Not their babies' needs
for the best attainable nutrition, health protection and
care. What has changed is women's economic and political
position in the face of business and industry. More women
nowadays are spending their childbearing years in paid employment,
and the need for adequate maternity protection legislation
has thus increased. These labour market changes were one
reason that the ILO governing body decided that it was time
to revise the Maternity Protection Convention for the second
time.
Not a "big
deal" for governments and employers
The low level
of ratification of the previous Maternity Protection Conventions
was a reason for revising. According to ILO's count only
38 countries have ratified either of the two MPCs. The ILO
Secretariat has stated in Report V (2) that a more flexible,
less prescriptive instrument would be more ratifiable. But
the ILO itself reported in 1998 that four out of five members
states surveyed provided 12 or more weeks maternity leave.
In the African region, only three countries had ratified
but 39 had 12 weeks or more of maternity leave. This fact
contradicts the opening statement by the Employers that
when countries do not ratify, "absolutely nothing happens."
Furthermore, the Croatian delegate reported that her country
provides 28 weeks of paid maternity leave, and women make
up 45% of the workforce. This example shows that providing
maternity leave does not necessarily jeopardize women's
opportunity for employment.
The best deal
for all
One major concern
about any increase in maternity protection is "who
will bear the cost?" The health and economic benefits
of maternity protection must also be considered by all parties.
Everyone benefits from maternity protection, so everyone
should share the costs. For employers, the benefits include
a productive, stable and loyal workforce, giving them a
competitive edge in the market. For nations, the benefits
include lower health care costs and less need to manufacture
or import expensive substitute foods for babies. In the
long-term perspective, the benefits of providing adequate
maternity protection far outweigh the costs. Or as the delegate
from Finland said at the opening of the session, maternity
protection is an investment in Social Capital.
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To
support the right of women workers to breastfeed,
we strongly recommend, in the Convention:
And
in the Recommendation:
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Contact for further
information :
GIFA, Geneva
Infant Feeding Association, Avenue de la Paix 11,
1202 Geneva,
Switzerland Phone : +41 22 798 91 64 Fax: +41 22 798 44
43
Email: gifa@iprolink.ch
The
ILO Campaign is organised by the Maternity Protection
Coalition consisting of groups from The World Alliance
of Breastfeeding Action (WABA),
the International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN) and LINKAGES,
with technical support from International Maternal & Child
Health, Uppsala (IMCH) and the United Nations Children's
Fund (UNICEF).
See daily updates
on the ILO
Campaign website.
See the Coalition
intervention at the Committee on Maternity Protection.
