Living and Working: Issues for Women in Ancillary Work

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Living and Working Issues for Women in Ancillary
Work

• Presentation by Judith Martin, Ph.D.
• Executive Director of the Work and Family Unit,
  Saskatchewan Labour
• Critical to Care Women and Ancillary Work in
  Health Care
• Toronto, February 8-10, 2006
• Slides intended to be accompanied by verbal
  presentation

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Work and Family Unit, Saskatchewan Labour
The Work and Family Unit co-ordinates the
Government of Saskatchewans activities aimed at
lessening the negative personal and corporate
consequences arising from employees inability to
balance their work and family responsibilities.
The overall objective of this unit is capacity
building. This approach involves providing
support, motivation, knowledge, and skill
development to key stakeholders within the
province business, labour, community, and
government, so that they can independently foster
family-responsive workplaces.
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SASK 67 of mothers of pre-school children in
labour force
Most families dual-earner
Todays Society
Most single parent families in labour force
Ageing Workforce
Ageing Population
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Shortages of Skilled Staff
Dominance of Internet Time
New Technologies
Todays Workplace
Old Work Culture/New Expectations
Shorter Retention
Work compressed/more dense
Fiscal Pressure
Public High Expectations
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Children
Lifelong training / learning
Childrens lessons/ sports
Todays Employee
Keeping Fit
Home / Yard
Community Activities
Hobbies
Ageing Parents / Relatives
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Individual vs. Societal approach

• Fix the Employee
• Fitness
• Nutrition
• Stress-management skills
• Time management skills
• Crisis counselling

• Change the Structure Culture of Workplace
• Structure where, when and how much one works
• Capacity to interrupt work on a short term/long
  term basis (design of work work organization)
• Culture beliefs, attitudes values taken for
  granted assumptions embodied in management/
  supervisors / co-workers

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Research Citizen Action Policy Formation

• Research very useful
• Voice outside and inside government needs to be
  broad
• Relationships critical
• Government is crisis-oriented

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Issues

• Lack of research popular understanding of
  work-family reality of ancillary employees
• The home front also a big issue
• Impact of speed-up on relationships with
  co-workers and supervisors
• Managers/supervisors outsource many work-family
  needs
• Supervisor/Manager is key
• Popular work-family solutions less effective for
  mother-employees

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Some Family-Friendly Strategies Not as Effective
for Mother-Employees
Research on more than 1220 Saskatchewan full-time
employees (with partners and at least one child
five years or younger) found that Saskatchewan
employees with supportive supervisors, flexible
work and the capacity to take paid days to care
for ill children (defined as employees with a
family-friendly workplace for this specific
research) reported less overload and work-family
interference. However, even in this type of
workplace, many mother-employees still reported
high overload (too much to do). See next slide.
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Data on these 1220 employees show that a
family-friendly workplace appears to have an
impact on the percentage of employees who report
high work-family conflict (overload work to
family interference)
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Public Policy is Essential

• Lower union density
• Unionized employees often seen as privileged
• To make privatization cost

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Some Practical Policy Priorities

• Family Responsibility Leave
• Breastfeeding/pumping breaks
• Pro-rated benefits for part-time workers
• Employee initiated flexibility
• Reduce inequities re maternity-related leave
  benefits
• Family-friendly hours of work exemption policy
• Reduced length of work during some stages in life
  cycle
• see Saskatchewan submission to the Federal
  Labour Standards Review Commission, Towards
  Improving Work and Family Balance A challenge
  that calls for non-legislative and legislative
  considerations by the Federal Labour Standards
  Review Commission.

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Federally funded Pan-Canadian non-legislative
programs

• Federal funding is needed to support research,
  partnerships, pilot projects, recognition of best
  practices
• see Saskatchewan submission to the Federal
  Labour Standards Review Commission, Towards
  Improving Work and Family Balance A challenge
  that calls for non-legislative and legislative
  considerations by the Federal Labour Standards
  Review Commission.

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Thank You