Neil Bibby MSP for West Scotland has met with members and representatives of Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers (USDAW) during their recent visit to the Scottish Parliament to hear about their campaign for supporting parents and carers at work, with a new focus on grandparents.
Grandparents provide more than 1.7 billion hours of child care each year and the value of grandparental childcare contribution has been estimated at £3.9 billion.
2.2 million grandparents who look after their grandchildren do so to allow the child’s parents to work.
Most grandparents have few, if any, rights at work when they need time off to care for their grandchildren. The charity Grandparents Plus estimate that nearly two million grandparents have reduced their hours, given up a job, or taken time off to care for a grandchild.
USDAW are campaigning for better rights at work for grandparents with caring commitments.
Neil Bibby MSP for West Scotland said: “Around half of all grandparents are still under the pension age and many continue to work beyond that.
The care grandparents provide is incredibly important for the economy in allowing parents of young families to work, however, more and more grandparents are struggling to juggle looking after grandchildren with going out to work themselves.
I fully support USDAW’s campaign for increasing rights at work for grandparents with caring responsibilities to ensure that these are properly recognised and considered by employers.”