UOW parental leave scheme sets the standard

Dec 08, 2004

Having a baby and a career has just become easier with new parental leave provisions for staff at the University of Wollongong. The University will become one of the first in Australia to offer general and academic staff returning from maternity leave a grant worth 12 weeks of annual salary.

The changes are part of an enterprise bargaining agreement negotiated with the National Tertiary Education Union and the agreement is expected to be certified by March next year.

Other key features of the new parental leave provisions include:

o Increased paid maternity leave from 12 to 14 weeks which can be taken as 14 weeks on full pay or 28 weeks on half pay

o Provisions for partners, where both are employed at UOW, to alternate in the role of primary carer and therefore split the 14 weeks paid maternity leave

o Continuation of the existing arrangement for a total of 52 weeks maternity leave (paid and unpaid) with the flexibility to spread this leave over 104 weeks

Vice-Chancellor, Professor Gerard Sutton, said that the 12-week grant was highly flexible and could be utilised for one or more of a variety of options.

“The grant can be used to supplement salary on return to work part-time, as a research re-establishment grant, to fund approved career development activities, to meet the full cost of off-campus child care or to subsidise KidsUni child care costs,” he said.

UOW's equal employment opportunity director, Robyn Weekes, said that UOW is the only university to offer such flexibility in the use of the grant, particularly with the childcare options.

“Two other universities provide the grant for academic staff coming back from maternity leave for research establishment, but we're the only university that has established a grant that people can use in a number of ways,” she said.

All of the parental leave benefits will also apply when adopting a child and, for the first time, fathers will be entitled to take up to five days of paid leave either side of birth or adoption as well as primary carers of a foster child in care for at least six months.

-RP