Plan for women to decide on hours

LONDON - British parents are to be given the legal right to work part-time and choose their employment hours in radical proposals for families being drawn up by Labour.

The so-called "workplace revolution" aimed at women will also give parents the legal right to paid sick leave if their children are ill.

In a new package of policies designed to enhance the "work-life balance", compulsory pay audits at work will force companies to reveal if they are paying women less than men for doing the same job.

The minimum wage will also be raised to help millions of women, including cleaners and care workers, on low pay.

The plan for new rights for families, drawn up by Constitutional Affairs Minister Harriet Harman, is designed to "draw the battle lines with the Tories over family policy" and will be debated at next month's Labour Party conference.

The policy package will include measures to raise child benefits for second and third children to help families who feel they can't afford to have more children.

The primary beneficiaries of the minister's proposals will be women and fathers with young children, who will be given greater opportunities to work flexibly. But it will infuriate company bosses, who will see it as an attempt by the Government to regulate the workplace.

The proposals come amid Labour fears that the Tories are trying to "steal Labour's clothes" by appealing to parents and women voters.

Polls have shown that Conservative leader David Cameron is winning back support from women voters who backed Labour at the last three general elections.

Harman said the proposals to be debated at the conference would represent "the next stage" of reforms designed to improve the work-life balance.

"We are really upping the stakes. We need to have a robust and rigorous approach to public policy on the family. We need to have a renewal of the minimum wage and mandatory pay audits because we can't tackle inequality when it is hidden," Harman said.

"The question of what happens at home can't be separated from the function of the economy. The Tories have been forced to accept Labour's agenda of maternity pay and leave. It is now essential for Labour to make further progress."

Harman believes all employees should have the right to part-time work. Under reforms introduced by Labour, employees have the right to ask their boss if they can work part-time but there is no obligation on them to agree. In the next stage of reforms being proposed, employers would have to prove the job cannot be done part-time to refuse the request.

Harman also wants to put "a floor under women's wages" by boosting the minimum wage so it helps low-paid women workers.

She has drawn up proposals for a new statutory right of a parent to gain sick leave if a child is too ill to go to school.

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