Negotiating the work contract

Your company would be an even better place to work if parental leave was expanded. Yours is a family company; it makes sense that it should respect the needs of the families that work for it.

I maybe forthright but I wasn’t in the end brave enough to sign my own name to this letter. I signed it merely as “A Wife of Someone Who Works Hard for You”.

After sharing my story with friends and colleagues, many were amused, some were shocked. But one friend was particularly interested in my unique form of industrial protest. By writing to my husband’s employer, complaining about the terms of his contract, I highlighted the fact that work contracts aren’t just about the two supposedly equal persons who negotiate their terms. My husband’s work contract actually impacts directly on me and the conditions under which we raise our future family. It also impacts on my mother and my sister, even my mother-in-law and sister-in-law, who may well be called upon to look after me if my husband has to return to work soon after our baby is born. In theory the employment contract is about two people - in reality it impacts a small community of friends, family and others.

I don’t really expect any reaction to my letter in the short term. What incentive does a company have to provide family-friendly benefits in the current political climate?

On the issue of work and family, there are no two ways about it - this government is deeply hypocritical. As a 30-something married woman, I am admonished by the treasurer for not breeding: encouraged to have at least three children. This might be easy for a small percentage of the wealthy, but for us, with a mortgage and a cost of living that requires two incomes, the crazy cost of child care (and ageing parents who should not be treated as an endless source of free childcare), and the kinds of measly benefits offered by my husband’s employer, the treasurer will be lucky if I have one kid. Maybe I should write to him as well?