New law seeks to extend maternity leave to 100 days
After gaining approval from four Senate committees, the Expanded Maternity Leave Law of 2015 is on its way to second and third readings in the Senate.
Here’s what the law seeks to give pregnant mothers:
- Paid maternity leave increase for private and public employees from 60 days to 100 days.
- Option to extend the leave to up to 30 days without pay.
- The law does not discriminate between normal and caesarian delivery—the benefits are the same.
- Private employees shall be paid by both the Social Security System (SSS) and the employer, with the two entities making sure that the new mother does not get any less than 2/3 of her regular monthly wages.
- Existing pregnancy benefits should not be changed because of the passage of this bill.
- Pregnant women who avail of these benefits cannot be demoted but can be transferred without diminishing their rank, pay or status in the office.
Under current laws, women get six weeks maternity leave, with two weeks before expected delivery date and four weeks after.
But don’t get too excited. There are still exceptions.
Go to the next page to see which businesses are exempted from giving maternity benefits and which employees may not be able to receive them.
Does this cover all employees?
The law does have exceptions, however, as some companies simply cannot pay these wages without work. Here are the exceptions:
- Businesses who don’t have to pay their workers minimum wage
- Businesses with less than ten workers
- Businesses who are valued less than Php3 Million
- Employees who are paid per task, commission or boundary.
- Employees who are set to receive the same or greater benefits under company rules.
Senator Pia Cayetano, who sponsors the bill, says that it’s high time our country caught up with the maternity benefits as mandated by the International Labor Organization.
In an interview with GMA News, she said, “In fact, in the ASEAN region, we lag behind in terms of maternity leave duration. Vietnam provides 120 to one hundred eighty 180 days of maternity leave, depending on working conditions and nature of the work. Singapore, on the other hand, provides one 112 days of maternity leave. Both countries give beyond what the ILO prescribes. Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, and Thailand all provide a maternity leave period 84 days.”
Read: Compute and claim your SSS maternity benefits
Are you excited for this, mommies? We’re hoping we get to reap these benefits when we get pregnant in the future!
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