I recall the school holidays that I spent with my grandparents. They are fond memories. Going up to West Hartlepool on the train together with my sister – and without my parents – was a real adventure. Summer holidays. Half terms. Days spent kicking a ball in the Burn Valley. The foul smell of Cameron’s Brewery. Oil Rigs out at sea. Outings to Seaton Carew. Now they were cold days! Trips to Hartlepool United – even now I still look for their scores. Great stuff!
I reflected on this today when I learned of the TUC claim that grandparents should be given rights to secure time off for looking after their grandchildren.
As someone newly acquainted with grand parentage, I was intrigued by the claim, albeit I regard it as daft. My grandparents were hardworking, deeply principled people who took pride in their grandchildren and caring for us. And boy, did they treat us well. Whether my grandparents in the North East, or closer to home in Edmonton, they were people who had standards and a real work ethic. One granddad was a train guard at West Hartlepool Station. The other was a security guard at the Idris Drinks factory in White Hart Lane, Tottenham. Both were out all hours earning a crust.
I really think that both would turn in their graves if they were to read of the TUC claim. It is not that life has not changed. It really has. But actually our working and resting lives have got easier not harder. And so we really have lost the plot when, whatever the rights and wrongs of such a claim, and for the record I am firmly in the ‘wrongs’ camp, we think that such is appropriate in the current economic mood. At times of tightening belts, reducing employer responsibilities and most important, making life easier for small and medium sized business, I am not sure why the TUC suddenly dreams up this one. I thought the present need was to encourage employment and promote small businesses. Why then do we suddenly invent yet another cost to the small business – with no obvious benefit – when nothing actually needed to be done.
I remember my grandparents well. Regrettably they all passed away during my teens and as I look at my own offspring now and the relationship they have with my mother and my wife’s mother (my stepfather and father in law both passed away some years ago), I am glad they have a longer experience with them.
What I do not recall, though, is my grandparents ‘taking firm’s time’. They looked after us because they wanted to. It was part of the parental thing. I am not sure how they managed it but somehow they did because it was what they wanted to do.
It seems almost too superficial to put this latest claim down to political correctness but please, just who did ask for this? And what planet do they live on. I dread the next Employment Tribunal claim when a grandparent makes a claim that their time off bid was denied because – wait for it – some inconvenient work needed to get done and my employer refused me time off.
We do seem to be developing a real nanny state that work is inconvenient and gets in the way of lifestyle.
You will not meet a greater champion of diversity and the benefits that it brings. But please, let's bury this claim where it belongs before we look totally daft. We argue about the business need for proper diversity and then something like this gives all the naysayers the material they need to set us back.
I support the TUC usually. But on this occasion, it most definitely gets the thumbs down.
Martin Tiplady is managing director of Chameleon People Solutions and former director of HR at the Metropolitan Police Service
