EXCERPTS
I applaud Laurie Monsebraaten’s excellent article on the desperate need for child care for shift workers, describing the contents of a new federally funded report. This is a problem that has been urgent ever since women joined the labour force in great numbers in the 1970s.
When I served on the Ontario Status of Women Council, we issued a report in 1980 entitled “Employment Strategies for Women in the 1980s.” In it, we sought a comprehensive child-care policy to include 24-hour-a-day child care for shift workers and emergency situations. Here it is 40 years later, and the need has been mostly ignored until now.
Not only should the recommendations in the report be implemented and funded, but employers also have a part to play. Human rights cases have ruled that when employers establish shifts, they are required to accommodate the child-care responsibilities of working parents. Otherwise, they are discriminating on the basis of family status.