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What’s the issue?
Balancing work and family life has become
a critical problem for many workers across Canada and in other
countries. Excessive workload is causing huge problems for increasing
numbers of workers trying to achieve that balance.
The solution
is to reduce workloads but it is also to provide supports to workers
with family responsibilities. But workplaces and government programs
haven’t kept up with the radical changes in Canadian families.
About
70 per cent of women with young children are in the labour force. More
than 15 per cent of families with children are lead by single parents,
the vast majority of them women. Three-generation families grew 39 per
cent between 1986 and 1996, even though they still represent only 3 per
cent of all family households in Canada. More than half of these
families are led by immigrants.
Statistics Canada’s 1991 Survey
on Health and Activity Limitation shows that almost 18 per cent of
Canada’s population has a disability, yet there is almost no
accommodation of their work and family needs. Lesbian and gay
individuals comprise about 10 per cent of the population, although
complete figures won’t be available until after the 2001 Census.
Clearly,
the family has truly been transformed from the ‘typical’nuclear family
depicted in the 1950s. And the nature of work has changed dramatically.
Fewer people have the luxury of regular, nine-to-five,
Monday-to-Friday jobs. Three out of 10 workers do not have regular
day-time hours. One out of four are on rotating or irregular shifts.
Multiple-job holders are growing. An increasing number work part-time,
casual or as temps. They piece together two or more jobs to meet family
needs. In the past 10 years, the number of women holding more than one
‘paid’ job jumped by 45 per cent.
In 1998, 21 per cent of workers
worked over 40 hours a week. About 10 per cent of Canadians worked
unpaid overtime. About 9 per cent worked paid overtime. Recent surveys
of CUPE members show that they put in longer hours because the services
they provide are urgently needed. Yet budgets have been slashed and
there are not enough staff to do all the work. Stress between work and
family life results from these extra hours tacked on to an already long day.
Does it affect some members differently than others?
Married women between the ages of 25 and 44 with children have
longer total work days than their male counterparts, says the 1998
Statistics Canada General Social Survey Overview of Time Use of
Canadians. These women work 1.6 hours a day more on household and
related tasks than men in the same age group. Female lone parents had
the longest total work day including paid and unpaid work.
Some
family responsibilities still go unrecognised in the work place.
Definitions of the family that exclude same-sex partners mean that some
workers can’t get family-related leaves. The federal parental
unemployment insurance provisions have been revised to include same-sex
couples, but not all provincial employment standards have been amended
to include leave for same-sex couples.
Often families that
don’t fit the formal definitions must patch together family time using
vacation leave. Too often they are left short-changed because their
relationships are not recognized. They face additional stress because
their identification of family or their lives fall outside historical
definitions. Many lesbian and gay members – and members that have
changed their sex [transgendered] – face this problem.
Some
employment standards legislation does not allow time off for holidays
that are not recognized in a North American Christian tradition.
Therefore some workers do not have their days of celebration
acknowledged in the workplace. They must celebrate without holidays or
time off apart from their vacation time.
Of the 2.3 million
adults with disabilities aged 15 to 64 years, 44 per cent are not in
the paid labour force. This compares to 20 per cent in the rest of the
population. Workplaces need to be changed to accommodate the work,
personal, and family needs of persons with disabilities.
How do we see it in our workplaces?
Balancing work with home and personal life was the greatest source
of stress for 45 per cent of Canadians according to an October 2000
Ipsos-Reid poll. The poll also showed that 42 per cent of Canadians say
their stress has increased over the past five years while 21 per cent
say it has remained the same.
The balancing act gets more
difficult during the child-rearing years. The 1998 Statistics Canada
General Social Survey found that just over half of men and women
between the ages of 25 and 44 felt that they did not have enough time
for family and friends. Almost as many said they felt trapped in a
daily routine.
The pressure of looking after aging parents has an
impact on the work lives of one in four Canadians, according to a 1999
study by the Conference Board of Canada. As the aged population grows,
more and more working Canadians are faced with caring for elderly
relatives. One in four Canadians provide some form of care to an
elderly relative. This further complicates the balancing act.
The
General Social Survey data showed that in 1995, almost two-thirds (62
per cent) of all women who had held a paid job took at least six months
off. That compared with about a quarter (27 per cent) among men. In the
1990s, almost half (47 per cent) of career breaks were family-related.
On
average, each full-time paid worker in Canada lost 7.4 days of work in
1997 for personal reasons. This consisted of 6.2 days lost to illness
or disability and 1.2 days lost to personal or family responsibilities.
Excluding maternity leave, women took off an average 9.1 days in 1997,
half again as many as the average 6.3 days for men.
Women with
pre-schoolers lost almost three times as many days for personal or
family responsibilities as did women in general. Men with pre-schoolers
lost twice as much time as all men. The rate of absenteeism and
interrupted work days are also higher for those who provide care to elders.
What can we do about it?
We can reduce the regular hours of work with no financial loss based
on voluntary and negotiated reductions in work-time. The legislated
work week should not exceed 40 hours and workers should have the right
to refuse overtime beyond the 40-hour work week. Workers who work more
than 100 hours of overtime a year should be compensated by time off in
lieu of overtime, rather than pay. Unpaid overtime must end.
We
must continue to fight for high quality, accessible, publicly funded
child care and elder care programs. These must meet the needs of
children, the elderly, and working people. We should not be forced to
exploit other workers to meet family responsibilities.
In the
absence of long-term solutions, job-sharing programs must respect
workers’ rights. They must be voluntary with no reduction in full-time
positions in the bargaining unit. There must be pro-rated benefits and
pension coverage for job-sharers and established procedures to create
and end such time-limited arrangements.
Language that includes
all families must be used in legislative and collective agreement
provisions. Collective agreements must reflect the needs of all
families in the definitions and benefits. Many provinces still need to
make changes to employment standards legislation to confer rights and
benefits on all families.
Better unpaid leaves for family
reasons must be established through employment standards. Most
employment standards legislation provides for parental leaves that
match the 35 weeks of parental benefits under Employment Insurance.
However, most provinces have not yet recognized same-sex partners for
the purpose of obtaining leaves as provided for in the EI legislation.
This also must change.
Family responsibility leave exists only
in a few jurisdictions and should be expanded. Ontario now provides up
to 10 days of unpaid leave for family crisis, but it may be difficult
to obtain unlike the more generous Quebec and British Columbia family
responsibility leave provisions.
Bereavement provisions in
employment standards don’t exist in every jurisdiction and too often
define the family restrictively. Bereavement leave provisions continue
to define family according to a 1950s model that no longer exists.
Improved
paid and unpaid leaves for family reasons must be negotiated in
collective agreements. The top-up for parental benefits should reflect
the longer benefits of 35 weeks covered under EI. Right now, many of
our agreements provide a top-up to the UI parental leave benefits but
most agreements only provide for 10 weeks.
Collective agreement
provisions for more paid and unpaid leaves relating to family matters
can be negotiated. Provisions for leave relating to family
responsibility should include the full range of family obligations.
Such provisions should allow for paid days that are not linked to sick leave.
Benefits provisions must include all family and home
life configurations so that all members are protected. For example,
persons with disabilities often have benefit needs that go beyond the
standard packages. Many transgendered members don’t have the benefits
coverage necessary to meet their needs.
We need to study how work
is organized with a view to making the workplace friendlier to
families. For example, increasing staffing levels makes it easier for
workers to deal with sudden family responsibilities. Work can be more
easily absorbed in a workplace where there are enough staff, rather
than the severely trimmed organizations that resulted from the budget
cuts in the 1990s.
Is there contract language that will help?
Yes. Here are several examples of language that has been negotiated.
Simon Fraser University and CUPE 3338
ARTICLE 38—COMPASSIONATE LEAVE
Definition:
When death or a serious illness strikes a close family member or close
friend of an employee, up to five (5) days compassionate leave with pay
may be granted at the discretion of the supervisor. This leave shall
not be unreasonably withheld.
Oxfam Canada and CUPE 2722
19.09 Leave for Sick Children and Dependent Relatives
Employees
with children and dependent relatives (defined as a relative of the
Employee or her/his spouse or spouse equivalent who is financially
dependent on the Employee by virtue of physical or mental disability or
old age) are entitled to time off with pay when the children or
dependent relatives are sick. Such time off is to total no more than
ten (10) working days per year.
Workplace Safety and Insurance Board and CUPE 1750
ARTICLE 16. LEAVE OF ABSENCE
16.01Justifiable Personal Reasons
In
each of the following circumstances the employee will provide prior
notice where practical, and if not practical, will notify the Manager
as soon as it is.
- A leave
of absence from work will be granted for justifiable personal reasons
such as the employee’s marriage, religious holidays, sickness/injury in
the immediate family requiring the employee’s presence. - The Manager may approve a request for leave for other justifiable personal reasons….
- Where an employee who is granted a leave of absence under (a), (b) or
- above
has sufficient attendance credits, the leave of absence will be with
pay and charged against attendance credits. A leave will not be
considered punitively in a performance appraisal.
Quebec health and social services employers and hospitals, with CUPE and other unions
LETTER OF AGREEMENT NO.13 REGARDING FAMILY RESPONSIBILITIES
[The
union and the employer] hereby recognize the interdependent nature of
the relationship between family and work. Further account shall
therefore be taken by the parties of the need to reconcile family and
work in the organization of work.
To this end, the parties to
this agreement encourage the sectoral, regional and local parties, as
the case may be, to better reconcile parental and family
responsibilities with work responsibilities, in determining and
applying working conditions.
They also negotiated improvements to maternity and parental leave provisions. These include:
- Maternity
Leave: For a woman who is not entitled to employment insurance, the
employer pays an allowance for 12 weeks at the rate of 93 per cent of
her wages. - Adoption Leave: Begins as soon as the parent
takes custody of the child or travels outside Quebec for adoption
purposes (following a placement order). - Paternity
Leave: Granted to an employee whose child is stillborn if the birth
occurred after the beginning of the 20th week of the pregnancy (new addition). - Extended Leave: Seniority is accumulated
for pay purposes for up to 52 weeks of leave without pay or partial
leave without pay, taken as an extension of maternity, paternity or
adoption leave.
(The full text of these provisions can be obtained from CUPE Research or Equality.)
What success have we had in tackling this issue?
Quebec central bargaining committees have made the balance between
family and work issues a priority. In doing so, they have won major
gains in maternity and parental leave provisions. These include leaves
for mothers who don’t qualify for benefits under EI. These benefits
provide a goal for CUPE members in other provinces.
On the
legislative front, CUPE has worked to protect and improve family leave
provisions in employment standards legislation. CUPE has also been a
leader in the fight for child care. Sign on for Canada’s Kids, a
coalition of organizations including CUPE, is calling for sustained
federal funding starting with $2 billion in the first year of a
multi-year commitment. These funds will be used to develop high
quality, accessible, publicly funded child care.
CUPE has been a
leader in the fight for recognition of lesbian and gay families. We led
the way on the recognition of same-sex partners in the collective
agreement in every province. CUPE was also instrumental in changing the
law on recognition of same-partners.
There is much more to be
done, and CUPE has set the pace for helping its members find a safe and
healthy balance between work and family life.
Conclusion
We need to make our workplaces friendlier to families. For example,
increasing staffing levels makes it easier for workers to deal with
sudden family responsibilities.
Work can be more easily absorbed
in a workplace where there are enough staff, rather than the severely
trimmed organizations that resulted from the budget cuts in the 1990s.
There
is much more to be done, and CUPE has set the pace for helping its
members find a safe and healthy balance between work and family life.