THE HOUSE of Representatives’ approval of House Bill 4113 which lengthens maternity leave from the current 60 days to 100, with pay is good news. Under the proposal, pregnant female workers in the government and the private sector can secure a 100-day maternity leave, regardless of their marital status and regardless if whether the child was delivered through the normal process, or through caesarian section or if there was a miscarriage. It mandates the Department of Labor and Employment, Civil Service Commission and Social Security System to issue implementing rules and regulations.
The Senate should take action on the same matter and pass a counterpart measure calling for the rights for women workers to maternity leave. This is a proposal that is long-overdue. We hope that the bill is approved and turned into law at the soonest possible time because it responds to the needs of thousands of Filipino women workers and their families.
However, it must be pointed out that efforts should be made to ensure that all women workers benefit from the bill when it becomes a law. This campaign for expanded maternity leave is supported and fought for by women workers, both those who are employed as regular and those who are contractual.
Contractual employees do not benefit from maternity or other leaves, and this is unjust because they perform the same necessary tasks as their regular counterparts, but their economic circumstances are much poorer.
There must be a clause in the bill that all contractual women workers can avail themselves of maternity leave, too, and given the same protections under it as those that are enjoyed by regular women workers.
Also, the bill when passed into law should not be allowed to be used against women workers. There are companies that use pregnancy as a reason not to terminate women workers, or not to employ them. This is a deliberate attack against the rights of women workers and an evasion of the responsibility of companies to provide maternity leave and support to their women employees.
There should also be a clause in the law that criminalizes all attempts of companies to dismiss women workers because they become pregnant. There should be no discrimination under the law.
