Maternity leave in danger 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 contries.
N 1952, the ILO adopted Convention number 103 on the protection of maternity. 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 to the duration of maternity leave. The Convention stipulates: "the duration of this leave will be 12 weeks at least ... the duration of the leave obligatorily taken after childbirth... will in no case be lower than 6 weeks"
In the proposed revision this is no longer stipulated: "maternity leave must include a period of obligatory leave, whose duration and distribution must be determined by each member". Another reason for concern: the recommendation which accompanies the draft revision of the convention stipulates; "As much as possible, measures should be taken to ensure that the woman can freely exert her choice with 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 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 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 mobilization can prevent social regression. In France, the National Collective for Women's Rights and the French 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 <[email protected]>
Women on the march acainst poverty and violence! ON March 8 last, numerous initiatives launched the World March of women against poverty and violence.
Some 4,200 groups are participating in the March, representing
153 countries of which 90 have set up national coordinations, a measure of the success already enjoyed by this initiative, first float-
Led as an idea at the Peking conference. In May alone there was a national march in Burkina Faso, a week of activities and meetings on the status of women in Niger, and national demonstrations in Haiti and Peru. The big meeting will be on October 17 in New York, where the marchers have set the objective of gaining at least 10,000 signatures in support of their demands. In Europe, meetings have already taken place in Paris, 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. * International Viewpoint #323 July-August 2000 35
* New Books
THIS will be the last number of International Viewpoint before our summer break. We will return in SeptemberOctober with a special double issue devoted to an analysis of the legacy of Leon Trotsky 60 years after his assassination which no reader of V should missi Thanks again to all of our readers for your continued support for this magazine. *
THe Legacy of emest Mandel
15
Lesauy available at last in English! The volume is a strikingly handsome and sturdy hardcover published by Verso
Press. Covering not only Mandel's pioneering explorations of the economics of late capitalism but also his work on bureaucracy, the transition to socialism and Auschwitz, it is a record of the 1996 founding seminar of the
Ernest Mandel Study Centre, edited by Gilbert Achcar and with contributions by Robin Blackburn, Michael
Löwy, Michel Husson, Charles Post,
Catherine Samary and Norman Geras among others. It also includes several of Mandel's articles never before available in English.
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36 International Viewpoint #322 June 2000