THE outspoken comments of Godfrey Bloom, a member of the European parliament for the UK Independence party, have stirred up a hornet’s nest among owners of small businesses. Many admit they secretly agree with his claim that no self-respecting small business would employ a woman of child- bearing age, saying that a small firm could be crippled if an employee takes maternity leave. But few dare to say it out loud.
Bloom, who runs his own small insurance brokerage, said last week: “No self-respecting small businessman with a brain in the right place would ever employ a lady of child-bearing age. That isn’t politically correct, is it, but it’s a fact of life. The more women’s rights you have, it’s actually a bar to their employment.”
Sylvia Tidy-Harris, founder and owner of The Speakers Agency, a small business employing three people in Leicestershire, said she would never employ a woman of child-bearing age.
“If someone who worked for me found she was pregnant and needed to have six months off, it would absolutely kill my business. I would have to keep her job open and if I hired someone to cover the job while she was on maternity leave, it would be impossible to find somebody else to be as enthusiastic and as committed because that person would know that at the end of the maternity-leave period they were going to be booted out.
“It would be incredibly debilitating for my business.”
She added: “Employing a mother whose mind is not on the job because her child is sick, or whatever, would drive me nuts as well because I want commitment. Women who are pregnant and have babies are not going to put their jobs before their babies. I would only take on somebody who was past child-bearing age or who had a househusband who could look after the baby.”
The Federation of Small Businesses was quick to distance itself from Bloom’s comments. Stephen Alambritis, its chief spokesman, said: “A recent survey of our members showed that they have taken on more women than men in the past three years. We haven’t seen any evidence of discrimination.”
However, even the federation admitted that the prolonged absence of staff can hurt a small business badly and the problem needs to be addressed.
Alambritis said: “It can be difficult for a small firm employing four people when one key person is away. We think there should be a wider debate about the incidence of absence from work and the impact it has on a small firm.”
The male boss of a small business that employs four people said: “Running any business is a risk but taking on a woman who could become pregnant is an additional risk which, if you don’t need to take, you shouldn’t.
“If you have two equally good people applying for a job, one in her early twenties who has just got married and the other in her mid-forties with kids, who would you choose? It is a no-brainer. And 99.9% of small businesses would make the same choice.”
He said: “The real impact is not the cost, it is the loss of manpower. If you have four people in your business and one goes on maternity leave, you have just lost a quarter of your workforce. And you cannot just hire someone to come in and do the job because, in a small company, employees become a key part of the business and so are difficult to replace.”
He admitted that his firm had even switched to hiring temporary staff as a way of getting round the problem.
The male owner of another small business employing 80 staff said: “It is not politically correct to say so, but small businesses with only a few employees have to discriminate against young women of child-bearing age when hiring staff. When we started the business with six people, if one or two had gone on maternity leave it would have crippled us.”
He said the biggest problem had been caused by giving women the right to extend their maternity leave by up to a year.
“A woman on maternity leave is under no obligation to tell you if or when she is returning, and that level of uncertainty can really cripple a firm. The problem is you don’t know whether to recruit a new person for the job or hold it open. I think after six months the maternity leaver should have to decide whether she wants to come back to work so the employer has the option of recruiting someone else to fill the job.”
However, some owners of small firms argue that the long-term benefits of retaining skilled and loyal staff far outweigh the short-term inconvenience of coping with maternity leave.
Richard Beggs, owner of Moving Venue Group, a London events organiser that has 40 full-time employees, said that women who take maternity leave usually end up becoming extremely loyal.
“I think they are aware of the fact that we see it as a possible problem and therefore try to compensate for that with extra commitment,” he said.
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