RECONCILING WORK AND FAMILYTRINIDAD AND TOBAGO

Rhoda ReddockYvonne Bobb-Smith

BACKGROUND Commissioned by the Work and Family

Programme of the INTERNATIONAL LABOUR ORGANIZATION (ILO)

With special emphasis on the following Conventions: o Workers with Family Responsibilities

Convention (No. 156 of 1981)o Maternity Protection Family

Responsibilities Convention (No. 183 of 2000)

OBJECTIVES TO DOCUMENT IMPORTANT CHANGES

OCCURING IN FAMILY AND WORK IN TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO - o Changes in family structure & role;o Implications for changing nature of work;o Policies & practices to reduce work-family

conflict;o Gender impact of work-family conflict;o Impact of family responsibilities on earning

and poverty;o Recommendations for Reconciling Work

with Family.

RESEARCH METHODS

PRIMARY DATA COLLECTION

SECONDARY DATA COLLECTION

PRIMARY DATA COLLECTION FORMAL INTERVIEWS e.g.

Workers in Social Services Labour Consultants; Family social workers; Human resource managers; Trade union leadership; Tobago House of Assembly.

INFORMAL INTERVIEWS/OBSERVATIONS e.g. Female and male parents Consumers in malls Workers in the informal economy Workers in Early childhood centres

SECONDARY DATA COLLECTION PUBLICATIONS AND ONLINE

RESOURCES Industrial Court Library Family Court Library Ministry of Social Development Ministry of Labour and Micro-enterprise

Development University of the West Indies

Centre for Gender & Development studies; Central Statistical office ILO and Gov’t of T&T Online Resources.

Trends in Family and Household Organisation Women as household heads

“households below the poverty line tend to be larger and headed by females who are often single mothers with dependent children, or contain at least one elderly person living alone or in an extended family setting sometimes having responsibility for the entire household”.

Elderly in Households• 22% of all households had at least one older person (65

years and older). Of these, 42% were extended family households while 21% comprised persons living alone. Male Single Parents

• There are a minority of single father families. They were more likely than married fathers to be living in an extended or complex household and to have more adult support available.

Trends in Family and Household OrganisationWORK AND CHANGING FAMILY TRADITIONS

Parents utilize the services of paid help for preschoolers, such as daily or live-in domestic help.

They place children in the care of neighbours or relatives.

They give responsibilities to older siblings; They use private or public child-care services. They hire help for after school care. They choose jobs, which have flexible hours to

manipulate their work time around hours for childcare.

They establish their own businesses.

Trends in Family and Household OrganisationFAMILY, WORK AND THE SEXUAL

DIVISION OF LABOUR Grandparents, from fifty up, perform

parenting roles especially in cases of abandonment of children by biological parents.

This form of informal adoption arises out of unemployment, migration, substance abuse, death caused by HIV/AIDS, murder and incarceration.

Trends in Family and Household Organisation Children in households with younger heads -

under 30 and 30-39 years of age are 80% and 40% more likely to attend school than children in households with older heads – those age[d] 40+…”(Bronte Tinkew,1998:27).

Joan Rawlins’ (2004) study found that 82% of caregivers of the elderly were women. Forty-five percent were over 50 years old and seven percent, between 20-29 years old. Spouses cared for 23%.

Trends in Family and Household Organisation Women find great difficulty in continuing

breastfeeding after returning to work;

“I returned to work when my son was 3½ months old. I visit his daycare every working day to breastfeed him and to express milk. How do I do it? My day goes like this: I breastfeed him at about 7:00 am before we leave home. I drop my (two) older children to school and then leave my baby in St James. I begin my lunch hour at 11:00 am and drive for 20 minutes from downtown, Port of Spain (capital) to St James (suburbs). When I arrive there, he is usually hungry and looking out for me, so I breastfeed him immediately… I eat the lunch I have brought with me and drive back to work, getting there by 12:30 pm” (Helen Ross, t.i.b.s NEWS April//June 2004: 1-2).

CASE STUDY 1 - COPING WITH WORK & BREASTFEEDING

HR BREASTFEEDS HER 3 ½ MONTH OLD SON AT LUNCH TIME -

Leaves her office downtown at 11:00 am,

Drives herself and takes 20+ minutes to arrive at the daycare in St. James.

Breastfeeds him; Eats her lunch; Returns to work at 12:30 pm.

Trends in Family and Household Organisation – Family and the Sexual Division of Labour Cont’d Women continue to have major responsibilities

for housework and child care;

Some men have become more sensitized and share responsibilities mainly in transporting children to and from school, supervising homework and grooming children;

Women reported difficulties in assigning housework to family members including children.

Trends in Family and Household Organisation – Family and the Sexual Division of Labour Cont’d

Mrs D, is a 51 year old hotel-worker, and head of a three–generation household of seven persons, Her daughter and three granddaughters, 16, 14, 10 years live with her. She copes by giving her daughter and grandchildren responsibilities for domestic tasks. Her husband, who is a builder, primarily does repairs to the house and yard work. She spends her time organizing and coordinating responsibilities

CASE STUDY 3 -COPING THROUGH DIVISION OF LABOUR

Mrs. D, hotel-worker, Tobago is head of a 3-generation household.

Her daughter and 3 grand-daughters share responsibilities for domestic tasks.

Her husband does house and yard tasks.

This system barely enables her to go regularly to her job, while she has to coordinate family responsibilities.

ASSESSMENT (1)NEW FORMS OF WORK-FAMILY CONFLICT ARE FOUND IN:

Difficulties of transportation and commuting. Traffic congestion and poor and unreliable public transportation including absence of a School Bus Service;

Mrs C. leaves Palmiste (South Trinidad) for her job in the capital city, Port of Spain at 5:15 am and arrives at work at 6:00 am. Her seven year old son travels to school a few miles away in a carpool. When his father is not at work, he takes him to school. She leaves work between 4:00 and 5:00 pm and arrives home between 6:30 and 8:00 pm in the evening. She notes that quality time with her son on a daily basis is reduced to merely an hour or less, as she sees him go to bed, and perhaps reads to him.

CASE STUDY 2 - COPING WITH TRANSPORTATION AND SECURITY

Mr. J., Taxi-driver, shuttles his 3 children to school and back home.

Two kids are at a school in Maraval and the other is downtown.

This reduces his earnings during peak hours.

Assessment 1 Cont’dRapid Industrialization and Urbanization

• Families and households have had to respond to the quick pace of social and technological change, and the attendant social dislocation;

• Increasing work demands;• Women’s insistence, generally, for a life beyond

the household;• Absence of family members for support due to

migration; increasing employment of women; grandmothers no longer always available.

ASSESSMENT (3)Work hours and school hours are not

synchronized;• Work hours differ from the school hours and

this is often a cause of much stress. • Schools may end at 12.15, 1.30, 2.00, 2.30,

3.00 or 5.15 p.m. • This stress has been heightened with the

increase in violent crime causing discomfort for parents and children.

FINDINGS (1)

Female parents make a valid attempt to combine their need for career fulfillment and economic autonomy but few support systems exist for them;

This was especially so for poor working-class mothers who may have to work when their children return home from school and during school vacations.

FINDINGS (2)

Neither the Employers Consultative Association nor the Trade Union Movement have systems in place to address this issue;

Little effort by the State as well to address the compatibility between workers’ rights and their family responsibilities.

Efforts aimed at providing childcare services in work vicinities such as office complexes, industrial estates need to be accelerated.

.

FINDINGS (3)

Increasingly citizens’ primary concerns are related to school transportation and school locations.

The business sector has given much less priority to the reduction of work-family conflict.

The state sector has indirectly addressed some aspects with initiatives like early childhood education services and the School Nutrition Programme.

FINDINGS (4)

YET, CITIZENS STILL RELY STRONGLY ON PERSONAL

STRATEGIES TO COPE.

RECOMMENDATIONS (1) THE STATE (Selected)

• Establishment of a multidisciplinary task force to examine the recommendations of this study and recommend legislative and other changes;

• Develop a pilot project of one Family-Friendly Government Ministry to include – a crèche, breast-feeding breaks, after school care centre, vacation programme; etc.

• Review the draft National Gender Policy and implement relevant recommendations;

• Reintroduction of the Basic Conditions of Work Bill;• Review the National Transportation Plan with a

focus on school transport;

RECOMMENDATIONS (1)THE STATE (Selected) The strengthening of the Ministry of Labour to better

monitor conditions of work in the low-wage sections of the public and private sector;

Rationalization of school opening and closing hours; Greater decentralization of essential services and

public offices to main towns and Tobago to prevent time lost in transacting personal business e.g. passports, ID cards, motor vehicle licences, taxation related matters etc.

Consider offering tax incentives to firms that implement practices that address work-family conflict.

RECOMMENDATIONS (2) PRIVATE SECTOR (Selected)

Develop a workplace culture to encourage workers’ contribution to work-family compatibility policies;

Implement flexitime arrangements; Develop collectively funded solutions, e.g.

homework centres, crèches, and so on at the workplace.

Document and Publicize Best Practices

o Introduce measures aimed at addressing work-family conflict into collective bargaining;

o Implement sensitivity and awareness programmes on work-family reconciliation;

o Facilitate gender sensitivity training for all trade union personnel – male and female;

o Develop a public education campaign on this issue and its impact on – parenting, youth criminality; worker commitment etc..

RECOMMENDATIONS (3)RECOMMENDATIONS (3)TRADE UNIONSTRADE UNIONS (Selected) (Selected)

CONCLUSIONTHE CREATION OF

FAMILY-FRIENDLY WORK SITUATIONS DEMANDS A CHANGE IN THE MINDSET WHICH SEPARATES

INCOME-EARNING WORK FROM FAMILY AND HOUSEHOLD.

IT CHALLENGES ALL SECTORS, HOWEVER, IT REQUIRES CREATIVITY

AND LONG-TERM COMMITMENT.

THANK YOU!