Hospitality staff can't afford to spend more time with the family

Most hospitality workers will be unable to take advantage of Government proposals to let them spend more time with their children because the leave will be unpaid, the Transport and General Workers' Union has warned.

Mothers, fathers and adoptive parents with one year's service will be entitled to 13 weeks' unpaid leave per child during the infant's first five years. The new rights will apply to all births after 15 December 1999 if the scheme goes ahead.

But Dave Turnbull, the union's London regional organiser, said the proposals, designed to implement an EC directive, were little more than a "perk for the rich" and would have a "negligible impact" on hospitality staff because they were so poorly paid. He accused the Government of shying away from upsetting big business and "doing the minimum it needs to do to be seen to be doing the right thing".

"People who can't afford to make use of the Working Time regulations to reduce their hours will not be able to afford to take time off to look after their children," he said. They would be forced to continue faking illness in order to care for a sick child "if they are lucky enough to work for a company that pays sick pay".

The British Hospitality Association (BHA) said it expected few problems and welcomed employers' rights to postpone parental leave for up to six months if it inconvenienced the business, and to receive four weeks' notice of parental leave, or double that for periods longer than a fortnight.

But BHA deputy chief executive Martin Couchman agreed that "there will be situations where it will not be widely taken up." He feared this would create pressure for a percentage of salary to be paid, as in Sweden. He also wanted parental leave limited to four weeks a year.

by Angela Frewin