The concept of “maternity leave” has been around in our law for a long time, and the journey towards extending the concept to employees other than mothers has been a long one, marked latterly by much delay and confusion over implementation of new legislation addressing the issue.
Last year in particular employers and employees were left scratching their heads over questions such as: When will fathers and same-sex partners be entitled to parental leave? What about adoptive parents and commissioning parents in a surrogacy agreement? Is there a right to paid leave, or just to unpaid leave? And if unpaid, what if anything can employees claim from the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF)?
Now at long last we have the answers. Read on for the details….
