Days off to care right helps 37k
UNPAID LEAVE LAW WELCOMED BY PEOPLE WITH DEPENDANTS
NEARLY 38,000 workers have been given the right to take unpaid leave to help with care responsibilities.
The Carer’s Leave Act came into force this month.
It means more than 11,000 employees in Leicester and nearly 27,000 in the county who are carers can take five days’ unpaid leave to help balance work with caring responsibilities each year.
Workers can take time off in full or half days.
People taking time off will have the same employment rights associated with other forms of family-related leave, such as protection from dismissal as a result of having taken the leave.
Lisa Crabbe, who lives in Leicester, said: “There have been occasions when, as I’m my son’s full-time carer and I have had a hospital admission, my daughter has had to take time off work to deal with my son and become his full-time carer alongside looking after me.
“This not only creates less time recreationally but there’s always the threat to an employee that they are going to be treated differently so that means you make up excuses and don’t feel able to tell the truth as you would feel threatened with dismissal if you did tell the truth.
“So, after speaking to my daughter, she feels that this new law will protect people like her, and instead of using annual leave would help people in her position greatly.”
Annie Bannister, from Great Glen, said: “The one that leapt out at me was that adult siblings now have the right to time off work if their disabled sibling needs them.
“I am right behind that. I’ve always said that a sibling of whatever age to a disabled child/adult is automatically a (young) carer.
“In the same way as we recognise young carers and schools have to have registers of them, we need to recognise that those same young carers, when they grow up, will not stop their caring responsibilities just because they have jobs.
“If their places of work don’t acknowledge and make adjustments for that, then there is the risk of them leaving work to care full-time and the cycle of poverty for families of disabled people continuing.”
A Leicester parent, who wished to remain anonymous, said: “This is a really helpful step in the right direction.
“I left my job recently as my partner and adult child are both disabled and I was finding it hard to keep up with appointments.”
Across the UK, research shows about 600 people a day give up work to care due to a lack of flexibility and support.
Helen Walker, chief executive of Carers UK, said: “The Carer’s Leave Act coming is a huge step forward which recognises the vital importance of their caring role and empowers them to ask for support in the workplace.”