Olga Fitzroy - Self Employed Parent Campaigner

Lockdown Dads

Olga Fitzroy, award winning sound engineer and parental pay equality campaigner joins us to discuss inequalities faced by the self employed. We discover her role in Pregnant Then Screwed's legal challenge against the government and discuss the legislative environment around self employment and shared parental leave.

Plus school is out again, with education disruption only just starting to be discussed in government. Ian's garden gets short listed for a prize and we briefly ponder the upcoming England v Scotland Euro clash (!)

Olga's path

When her son was born in 2015, she was a self employed sound engineer and looked into the new policy of Shared Parental Leave, only to discover that the self employed aren't allowed to take it
Q, Did you know that self employed men have no paid paternity leave rights?

What started as mission to send a few emails - which would quickly lead to a realisation that the policy needed to fixed... became an ongoing campaign involving the Musician's Union, former and current MPs, Shadow Ministers and a presence in both the Labour and Lib Dem manifestos.

Despite Theresa May commissioning a review of parental leave with the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS), Brexit and Covid focus has stalled progress, though Olga explains there are a number of key allies on the government benches

We discuss the benefits of Shared Parental Leave

Mums being able to take less time off, dads get to take more time off, closing the gender pay gap, reducing the motherhood penalty and how a mother's income increases for every month that a father spent at home.

McKinsey evidence that mothers’ incomes rose about 7 percent for each month that a father spent at home on paternity leave.

SPL is good for children and for role modelling for young kids, for redressing the Covid impact and creating a gender equal recovery.

...and the challenges in achieving policy change

A lack of genuine experience of self employment in government and civil service, plus a lack of bandwidth, so it's hard to get access.

We talk about the plight of day care v a government focus on 'Winkie' Infrastructure

Pregnant then Screwed.

Olga sits on the campaign and policy board, leading on the sex discrimination case against the government as to how the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) is calculated - with periods of maternity leave not being exempted from the self-employed grant calculations. We learn that PTS have been given leave to appeal the original decision in favour of the government.

Tips

Period https://www.amazon.co.uk/Period-Natalie-Byrne/dp/1999894111

Delayed gratification

Self employed can still get 30 hours free childcare if their income has dropped as a result of Covid

Links

http://www.parentalpayequality.org.uk/

https://pregnantthenscrewed.com/

https://www.workingdads.co.uk/role-modelling-working-dads/

https://pregnantthenscrewed.com/were-threatening-legal-action-against-the-chancellor-for-indirect-sex-discrimination/

https://www.gov.uk/30-hours-free-childcare