Activities of Tania GONZÁLEZ PEÑAS related to 2015/2097(INI)
Plenary speeches (1)
Framework Agreement on parental leave (A8-0076/2016 - Maria Arena) ES
Amendments (25)
Amendment 9 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 12
Citation 12
Amendment 14 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital A
Recital A
A. whereas there is little chance of the 75 % employment rate target set in the Europe 2020 strategy being achieved for women (it currently stands at 63.5 %) by 2020achieving the target of high-quality, stable and decent work for women, on equal conditions to men without proactive policies designed to help women enter the job market, especially policies that promote a better work-life balance;
Amendment 24 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital B
Recital B
B. whereas available data confirms that unpaid or poorly paid family leave results in low participation rates, fathers make use of very few of their parental leave rights and non-transferable, properly paid parental leave is used in a more balanced way by both parents; whereas a non- transferable paid leave entitlement of equal duration would ensure a fairer balance of responsibilities between men and women in care work and reduce discrimination against women in the labour market;
Amendment 29 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital C
Recital C
C. whereas, within the framework of public policies in force on the matter, fathers’ participation rate in parental leave in the EU Member States remains low, with only 10 % of fathers taking at least one day of leave; in contrast, 97 % of women use the family leaveparental leave that is available for both parents; but generally not taken by fathers since it is not provided on equal conditions, transferable between parents or paid at a rate of 100%;
Amendment 33 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital D
Recital D
D. whereas the EU as a whole is facing a serious demographic challenge as birth rates are constantly decreasing in most Member States, and family policies that are fair to men and women should both improve women’s prospects on the job market and have a positive impact on demographic processes; not because of a choice made by women and couples over whether to have children but because of the growing deterioration in their living and working conditions as a direct result of so-called austerity policies, which have created unemployment and precarious employment and led to the absence of and violation of maternity and paternity rights at the workplace, increasing the cost of essential goods and services, destroying public services and making it more difficult to access facilities for children;
Amendment 35 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital D
Recital D
D. whereas the EU as a whole is facing a serious demographic challenge as birth rates are constantly decreasing in most Member States, and familywork-life balance policies that are fair to men and women should both improve women’s prospects on the job market and have a positive impact on demographic processes;
Amendment 38 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital D a (new)
Recital D a (new)
Da. whereas a discriminatory leave system serves to widen the gender pay gap and undermines the right of children to enjoy the protection and parental care of both their mother and father, the right of its parents to care for their offspring and the right of all people to equal social entitlements; whereas introducing the element of transferability represents a break with the principle of individual social entitlements;
Amendment 40 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital D a (new)
Recital D a (new)
Da. whereas it is vital to ensure that women have the right to jobs with rights and the right to motherhood without being penalised for it, since women continue to be worst affected and suffer most discrimination; whereas examples of this discrimination include pressure from employers when women attend job interviews, when they are asked whether they have children and how old they are, with the aim of influencing women's decisions and opting for childless workers who are 'more available', along with growing economic and work-related pressures for female employees not to take maternity leave;
Amendment 44 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital D b (new)
Recital D b (new)
Db. whereas many workers who are in precarious employment or unemployed do not have the right to parental leave;
Amendment 55 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. Considers it regrettable that not all Member States have provided the Commission with correspondence tables between the provisions of the directive and the transposition measures; considers it crucial for Member States to ensure that the necessary inspection resources are in place to verify that legislation protecting parents' rights is being complied with;
Amendment 57 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. Considers it regrettable that there are disparities between the transposition measures of the directive in the field of application, thus creating systems that benefit workers to varying degrees depending on their employment sector (public or private) and the length of their contract; stresses that everyone should be guaranteed the right to parental leave without discrimination, regardless of the type of contract working fathers and mothers are employed under;
Amendment 69 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 5
Paragraph 5
5. Notes the high degree of variability between Member States regarding the maximum duration of parental leave; welcomes the various measures adopted to encourage fathers to take parental leaveconsiders it essential to recast the existing directives into a single European directive providing for an equal and non- transferable parental leave entitlement on full pay for mothers and fathers;
Amendment 89 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 7
Paragraph 7
7. Emphasises that family rights assigned by public policies, including parental leave, should be individual rather than transferable, with a view to encouraging both parents to achieve a better work-life balance, to respecting the principle of individual social entitlements that automatically applies to all other work- related – such as the right to annual leave and sick leave – and unemployment- related entitlements and to improving their efficiency and take-up rates, especially among men;
Amendment 95 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8
Paragraph 8
8. Notes the flexibility the directive grants to the Member States to define forms of parental leave – part-time or full-time – and the working and notice periods established as conditions for granting parental leave; welcomnotes the initiatives introduced by the Member States to give workers as much flexibility as possible in this area, ensuring that parental leave ties in with their professional and personal circumstances, but believes tharefuses to accept any choices made to cede some of the decision- making power to employers should not ince this runs coundtermine to the target of increasing the taking of parental leave, and recommends the introduction of non-transferable parental leave entitlements of equal duration on full pay;
Amendment 98 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8
Paragraph 8
8. Notes the flexibility the directive grants to the Member States to define forms of parental leave – part-time or full-time – and the working and notice periods established as conditions for granting parental leave, whereby these different arrangements should depend on requests being made by mothers and fathers; welcomes the initiatives introduced by the Member States to give workers as much flexibility as possible in this area, ensuring that parental leave ties in with their professional and personal circumstances, but; believes that any choices made to cede some of the decision-making power to employers should notwill undermine the target of increasing the taking of parental leave; points out that consideration needs to be given to a minimum period of leave of six weeks, which would be compulsory for mothers after confinement, in line with Parliament's proposal of 20 October 2010 with a view to amending Directive 92/85/EEC;
Amendment 102 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8 a (new)
Paragraph 8 a (new)
8a. Notes that, more than a decade after the Member States transposed the Directive, the gender imbalance in taking parental leave persists, a direct result of the fact that such leave is neither transferable nor well paid and is thus not generally taken by men, thereby depriving them of the right to care for their offspring under equal conditions and causing women to continue to take time off work for childbirth or adoption, thus reducing both their income and the employment rate of mothers and women in general;
Amendment 128 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 10
Paragraph 10
10. Believes, in view of the overlapping nature of the different types of family leave, that a coherent revision of the various texts at EU level is required so as to recast them into a single European directive;
Amendment 130 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 10 a (new)
Paragraph 10 a (new)
10a. Calls for the EU to adopt a single directive on leave for childbirth or adoption to replace the two existing directives (2010/18/EU and 92/85/EEC), thus putting an end to the situation whereby two unconnected directives regulate the same thing: the birth or adoption of a child and the right of its parents to care for it;
Amendment 135 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11
Paragraph 11
11. Emphasises the need to activate the revision clause in EU legislation on parental leave for that purpose, including, in particular: the adoption of measures guaranteeing the allocation of parental leave allowances always on the basis of 100% of reference pay, a specific form of maternity leave in the case of premature birth for as long as the newborn baby has to remain in hospital, and subsidised leave where babies are born with conditions that require hospitalisation;
Amendment 143 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 12
Paragraph 12
12. Calls on the Member States to introduce financial compensation to the tune of 100% of their wages for parental leave for all parents with a view to reaching a level that would act as an incentive for income replacement, over the entire minimum time period guaranteed by the single directive establishing an equal, non-transferable parental leave entitlement on full pay for each parent, based on the average EU maternity leave income replacement rate, in order to safeguard families’ social and economic wellbeing;
Amendment 152 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13
Paragraph 13
13. Calls on the Commission and the social partners to offer to extend this minimum duration from four to six mstablish a standard leave entitlement of the same duration for each parent, on full pay, to improve work- life balance; reiterates, therefore, the need to harmonise the applicable rules by submitting a legislative initiative on this to improve work-life balancematter unifying maternal, paternal and parental leave entitlements with a view to addressing the real-life situation of women and men in the Member States of the EU;
Amendment 157 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13
Paragraph 13
13. Calls on the Commission and the social partners to offer to extend this minimum duration from four to six months, paid at 100%, to improve work-life balance;
Amendment 165 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 14
Paragraph 14
14. Stresses that improved coordination, coherence and accessibility in the Member States’ leave systems (maternity, paternity and parental) increases participation levels and overall efficiency; stresses in that regard that an EU single directive on a two-week paternity leave is essentialleave for childbirth or adoption is essential to replace the two existing directives (2010/18/EU and 92/85/EEC), thus putting an end to the situation whereby two unconnected directives regulate the same thing: the birth or adoption of a child and the right of its parents to care for it;
Amendment 187 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 16
Paragraph 16
16. Believes that, alongside legislative measures to promote work-life balance, the Member States, with the financial backing of the various EU instruments, should focus on introducing high-quality, accessible public childcare facilities with a view to meeting the Barcelona objectives;
Amendment 194 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 17
Paragraph 17
17. Call on the Commission, in that regard, to incorporate workplace gender equality objectives into the European Semester for economic policy coordination to enable the targets of the Europe 2020 strategy to be met and to gauge the positive influence of legislative measures on improving work- life balance with a view to redistributing family and domestic responsibilities;