PN to challenge legal notice on parental and carers’ leave

The Nationalist Party will challenge a legal notice that introduced more leave for parents and carers, arguing that the legislative package should have done more to protect workers’ rights.

In a press conference on Thursday, PN MEP David Casa argued that government waited until the last minute to introduce this law, which served to transpose the EU’s Work-Life Balance Directive.

“We had two aims to the directive, namely to increase the minimum rights of parents and carers across Europe, and to decrease inequality between men and women.”

Casa was the European Parliament’s lead negotiator of the Directive. When the legal notice was issued, he had pointed out that government introduced the notice mere days before the transposition deadline.

 “The directive establishes the minimum standards that member states should introduce in their law,” he explained.

Casa added that government used a legal notice in order to bypass the national parliament and introduce the law without discussions nor amendments.

He described the notice as a “lost opportunity for concrete investment for Maltese and Gozitan families”.

Nationalist MP Graziella Attard Previ noted that there is a large care gap between men and women. She said 42% of women take on care duties with children, the elderly, or people with disabilities, while only 25% of men do the same. Women are more likely to do cooking and cleaning in the home compared to men, she later pointed out.

“This financial burden should be carried by government.”

Attard Previ and MP Ivan Castillo presented a list of proposals the Opposition would bring to the table on this legal notice.

They argued that parental and carers’ leave should be paid in full by government at the median wage rate, as opposed to the sick pay rate. Parental leave should be transferable either, they said.

In addition, paternal leave should increase from 10 days to 15 days starting from 1 January 2024, also paid out by government at full pay.

They said self-employed workers should also benefit from parental and carers’ leave at the median wage rate.

Moreover, the law should be backdated to 2019.