With adequate support mothers and parents can have careers and raise a family. Image credit: Shutterstock.
38 Degrees, an online campaigning organisation, has created a petition urging the Government to make high-quality childcare affordable and accessible for all.
Britain has the second most expensive childcare in the world. Costs have rocketed by as much as £2,000 a year since 2010, pricing tens of thousands of parents out of work. As food, fuel and energy costs continue to soar, families are being pushed to breaking point: one in three parents are now spending more than a third of their wages on childcare.
Sign the affordable childcare for all petition.
Supporting our members
The MU recognises the urgent need for a government review of childcare and during March’s TUC Women’s Conference, we reported how many women and parents have put their careers on hold due to caring responsibilities. Research by Pregnant then Screwed revealed that during the Covid-19 pandemic 72% of mothers worked fewer hours because of childcare issues.
The current systems we have in place to support mothers and parents are broken, especially as they apply to the self-employed.
With adequate support mothers and parents can have careers and raise a family.
Conference asked the TUC to lobby Government to:
- Subsidise childcare from six months old
- Extend Shared Parental Pay to self-employed workers
- Revise maternity leave as it applies to the self-employed
- Introduce a parental allowance for those who may not qualify for statutory pay.
We’ve also recently supported calls from Maternity Action to increase the rate of state maternity pay and have increased our own parental grants, as well as making the process more inclusive.
Additionally at this year’s Labour Women Conference, our motion was seconded on supporting women through early pregnancy loss. We called for paid statutory maternity leave to be introduced that would be available to self-employed workers and for a standardised system of accessible support, including mental health support, to be introduced after every miscarriage.
Want to get involved?
As well as completing the affordable childcare for all petition, our women and non-binary members are also invited to join the MU’s Women in Music Network if they haven’t already done so.
The network advocates on behalf of women musicians to ensure their rights are upheld and strengthened – where they encounter discrimination, we’ll challenge it.
Remember if you do experience discrimination, including pregnancy discrimination, please get in touch with equalities@themu.org and/or your regional office.