A SEVEN-DAY paid leave system for workers to take time off to care for sick family or household members would allow a parent to stay at home with a child testing positive for Covid, even if the youngster is asymptomatic, says social rights minister Ione Belarra.
She announced this week that her department, along with the ministry for equality – led by fellow Podemos member Irene Montero – was working on including care leave into a future 'Family Law', in a bid to help the public balance their jobs with home commitments.
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The pandemic has left parents of school-aged children in a constant state of anxiety as to what they would do if their child was forced to quarantine at home due to a 'positive' among their classmates or teachers, given that they would necessarily have to be off work so as not to leave them at home alone, even if the child him- or herself had no symptoms and was perfectly well.
A child with Covid may not be unwell, but still has to be off school - not easy for parents who cannot work from home (photo: Getty Images)
Other workers, who have elderly, sick or disabled parents, partners or other relatives can face having to lose a day's or a week's pay in order to give them the vital care they need – and, even if they can afford to do so, worry they may be seen as 'unreliable' through having to take days off without notice.
“We need to be able to put more measures in place that guarantee care rights in this country,” Ione Belarra stresses.
“Covid has shown us what's important in life – taking care of ourselves and having the time we need to take care of others – and these lessons are here to stay.”
She made this speech during her slot at the conference A Law to Protect All Families, set up to review the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD's) and the European Commission's white paper covering diagnosis and analysis of Spain's care and family situation, and to offer recommendations.
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This new law is still being drafted, but its aim is to increase the number of days a worker can take off for care commitments without losing pay, and make the system more flexible.
At present, companies are required to allow parents with minor or disabled children, at least, unpaid time off work to care for them, but this may not always stretch to other relatives or household members, and many employees simply cannot afford not to get paid.
Juggling family care with a job is never easy, but Spain's government wants to try to take some of the stress out of the daily multi-tasking involved
For the moment, annual care leave is expected to be set at seven days a year, with pay, increasing to nine days where care duties involve having to travel to another region – such as if an employee lives in, say, Andalucía, and his or her elderly or ill parent lives in Murcia.
The changes still need to be discussed with Podemos' coalition partners, the socialists (PSOE), along with other proposals the ministry of social rights has been working on in the past few months.
Equal maternity and paternity leave at six months, transferred to other relatives for single parents
These include maternity and paternity leave each being six months – but not transferable between the parents, so as to avoid a situation where one goes straight back to work and the other becomes primary caregiver for almost 100% of the time for the first year of a child's life.
Additionally, Ione Belarra's department wants to allow single parents to be able to choose another party, such as a family member, or a member of the household who is not the mum or dad, to take on the six months of leave that a co-parent would have had.
Another proposal is for a monthly benefit of €100 per child, payable until each child turns 18.
At the moment, parents get an automatic €100-per-month tax rebate, but will generally not receive the money until they file their annual tax return – where they are due money back from the tax authorities, this may appear within days, or could take up to seven months, given that 'tax return season' is between April and June for the previous year, and the treasury has until December 31 that year to refund overpayments.
Ione Belarra considers parents need more immediate financial help for child-rearing, rather than getting it months in arrears.
“Taking parents to doctor's appointment, sitting up with a sick child...”
“We believe Spain needs to fall in line with other European Union countries and establish a system of care leave, of at least seven days a year per person, on full pay,” she says.
“This would allow you to stay at home looking after your kids if they're up all night being sick, or if you need to take a day off to take your elderly parents to the doctor, or so you can stay at home with your partner if he or she is ill.
“Basically, paid care leave would offer peace of mind to families at a time when they need to be near their loved ones.”
Up to two days' paid care leave is currently allowed in Spain for employees, but strict criteria apply – such as having to be for a serious illness.
As a result, Covid may not qualify, if the person affected is only mildly unwell or has no symptoms and is merely quarantining.
It is also limited to immediate family members, such as a child, spouse or parent, or 'second-degree' family members, such as grandparents, grandchildren or siblings.
Ione Belarra wants to extend it to 'any member of the household', which would remove the grey area as to whether an unmarried partner counts, and would allow people to care for friends they live with, nieces and nephews, and so on.
“The State needs to take joint responsibility for care needs”
“As we all know, in Spain, the family takes on the lion's share of care duties, and yet there's no joint responsibility in this respect on the part of the State – and it's time the State started to take joint responsibility for family welfare,” says Ione Belarra.
“At the moment, caregiving tends to fall largely to the women in the family, and childcare to grandparents.”
It's not just parents with young children who would benefit from extended paid care leave - the system would allow employees to be there for their elderly or disabled parents or grandparents when they needed it, as well as any other member of the household
Irene Montero, herself a mum of three – whose first two children, twin boys, were born prematurely and spent weeks in neo-natal intensive care – says 'emergency measures' brought in to allow families to look after each other as a result of the pandemic 'should not be the end of the story', but should be the 'start of structural transformations that ringfence the rights of the family'.
She pointed out that the future, in socio-economic terms, should focus on 'sustaining life' rather than 'the current global economic and social organisation turning its back on a fundamental reality', which is that 'we cannot live without daily care and carers'.
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