To continue reading please register or login to your OHW+ account.
Working women may be given extra employment rights under plans being drawn up by the Labour Party, according to newspaper reports.
Mothers could also be paid sick leave if their children are ill and given more legal rights to work part-time.
In a new package of policies, compulsory equal pay audits will force companies to reveal if they are paying women less than men for doing the same job. The minimum wage will also be raised to help millions of women, including cleaners and care workers, on low pay.
The package of workplace rights is being drawn up by constitutional affairs minister Harriet Harman.
Harman, who devised earlier reforms of maternity and paternity leave, believes a "workplace revolution" should form a central part of Labour's strategy to win a fourth term in office.
The plans will be discussed at next month's Labour Party conference in Manchester.
Harman told the Independent on Sunday: "We are really upping the stakes. We need to have a robust and rigorous approach to public policy on the family. We need to have mandatory pay audits because we can't tackle inequality when it is hidden."
She told the paper the reforms were based on the idea that "human capital is crucial to the economy".
Any further extension of workplace rights is likely to anger employers' groups, who claim the workplace is already over-regulated.
