RECONCILING WORK AND FAMILY TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO

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RECONCILING WORK AND FAMILYTRINIDAD AND TOBAGO

• Rhoda Reddock
• Yvonne Bobb-Smith

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BACKGROUND

• Commissioned by the Work and Family Programme of
  the INTERNATIONAL LABOUR ORGANIZATION (ILO)
• With special emphasis on the following
  Conventions
• Workers with Family Responsibilities Convention
  (No. 156 of 1981)
• Maternity Protection Family Responsibilities
  Convention (No. 183 of 2000)

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OBJECTIVES

• TO DOCUMENT IMPORTANT CHANGES OCCURING IN FAMILY
  AND WORK IN TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO -
• Changes in family structure role
• Implications for changing nature of work
• Policies practices to reduce work-family
  conflict
• Gender impact of work-family conflict
• Impact of family responsibilities on earning and
  poverty
• Recommendations for Reconciling Work with Family.

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RESEARCH METHODS

• PRIMARY DATA COLLECTION
• SECONDARY DATA COLLECTION

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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

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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 Govt of TT Online Resources.

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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.

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Trends in Family and Household Organisation

• WORK 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.

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Trends in Family and Household Organisation

• FAMILY, 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.

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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 aged
  40(Bronte Tinkew,199827).
• 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.

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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 700 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 1100
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 1230 pm (Helen
Ross, t.i.b.s NEWS April//June 2004 1-2).
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CASE STUDY 1 - COPING WITH WORK BREASTFEEDING

• HR BREASTFEEDS HER 3 ½ MONTH OLD SON AT LUNCH
  TIME -
• Leaves her office downtown at 1100 am,
• Drives herself and takes 20 minutes to arrive at
  the daycare in St. James.
• Breastfeeds him
• Eats her lunch
• Returns to work at 1230 pm.

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Trends in Family and Household Organisation
Family and the Sexual Division of Labour Contd

• 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.

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Trends in Family and Household Organisation
Family and the Sexual Division of Labour Contd

• Mrs D, is a 51 year old hotel-worker, and head of
  a threegeneration 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

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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.

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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 515 am
  and arrives at work at 600 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 400 and
  500 pm and arrives home between 630 and 800 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.

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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.

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Assessment 1 Contd

• Rapid 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
• Womens 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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

.
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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.

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FINDINGS (4)

• YET, CITIZENS STILL RELY STRONGLY ON PERSONAL
  STRATEGIES TO COPE.

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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

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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.

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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

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RECOMMENDATIONS (3)TRADE UNIONS (Selected)

• Introduce measures aimed at addressing
  work-family conflict into collective bargaining
• Implement sensitivity and awareness programmes on
  work-family reconciliation
• Facilitate gender sensitivity training for all
  trade union personnel male and female
• Develop a public education campaign on this issue
  and its impact on parenting, youth criminality
  worker commitment etc..

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CONCLUSION

• THE 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.

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THANK YOU!