New Parental Leave Legislation
The States have approved the appointed day act for the Employment (Amendment No.11) (Jersey) Law 2020 which will introduce extended rights for parents in the workplace from 28 June 2020. Maternity, parental and adoption leave is now referred to as parental leave and is extended to 52 weeks of which 6 weeks is to be paid by the employer. The new legislation also introduces breastfeeding rights in the workplace. Employers will have to take reasonable steps to provide facilities at work for breastfeeding mothers to express and store milk, where an employee requests it. The new law takes into account the cost, the resources available to the employer and the size of the business when determining whether reasonable steps have been taken in this regard.
The States have also implemented an interim scheme to financially support employers with the change to the parental leave provisions until the new parental leave allowance is adopted. Parental leave allowance will replace the current maternity allowance provided by Social Security. It is anticipated that this will be introduced early next year.
The table below sets out the other family friendly changes that will be in force from 28 June.