To celebrate Family Day 2018, the BC Federation of Labour is proposing a small but important step that would better support many working families in our province.
“We think we should look at updating and changing our employment laws’” says BCFED President Irene Lanzinger, “to ensure that working parents have the right to take leave to deal with day-to-day realities for todays’ families like personal or child illness, a medical appointment or a family emergency.
“Workers with union contracts have this kind of leave. But there’s nothing in the law for those who aren’t union members,” she says.
“So if you have to miss a shift to care for a sick child, you can be fired. Not all employers would do that of course. But creating leave to address the pressures that families face every day would help workers and level the playing field for working people.”
Lanzinger says it’s an issue the labour movement will be focusing on in the weeks ahead.