The Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise and Industry has unequivocally expressed its disapproval of the amendments the government is contemplating to make in the law regulating employment relations and which are aimed at introducing new provisions related to family-friendly measures.
These were defined by chamber president Frank Farrugia as “populist measures that seem to be primarily designed to pander to the lowest common denominator of our society with total disregard to the cost on the private sector and on the exports competitiveness, which is so crucial to our nation” (Times of Malta, March 27).
Somehow, this reaction by the Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise and Industry reinforced my conviction that the novel Hard Times, written by Charles Dickens in 1854 transcends its own time and remains relevant to the present generation of employers.
This is how Dickens describes the reaction of the industrialists to the dynamics of the labour market of his time: “Surely there was never such fragile chinaware as that of the millers of Coketown were made. Handle them never so lightly and they fell to pieces with such ease that you might suspect them of having been flawed before. They were ruined when they were required to send labouring children to school; they were ruined when inspectors were appointed to look into their work; they were ruined when such inspectors considered it doubtful whether they were quite justified in chopping people up with their machinery; they were utterly undone, when it was hinted that perhaps they need not always make quite so much smoke”.
This passage from Dickens’s novel makes the parallelism between the different generations quite palpable. Of course, this does not imply that the employers of today are stuck in the mindset of the 19th century. Much has changed since Dickens’s time and the modus vivendi prevailing at today’s workplace consists of a more substantial and practical compromise between the parties involved in the production of goods or provision of service.
To maintain their viability and sustain their growth, employers have to be flexible to the demands of the new society
The compass of this compromise, however, needs to be recalibrated in order to be fine-tuned to the dynamics of a post-modern and knowledge-based society in the 21st century.
Economic and demographic shifts and changes have had a large impact on the relationship between family and work. If employers want to be able to hire the most qualified job applicants, they need to recognise the implications of societal changes. In making their decisions, women and men may take the flexibility a company offers into account. More women than ever before have joined the labour force. This may have many implications for the relationship between work and family because women have traditionally been implicitly or explicitly forced to play the dual role of taking care of children and the home.
Although the relationship between work and family receives a lot of media attention, our society has not yet adapted to the dual worker household and the single parent family.
Few employers provide family-friendly services that go beyond the standards set in the law. They also offer little if any of the flexibility needed and desired by both their male and female employees to enable them to cope with the conflicting demands of work and the family.
Working parents panic when the child is sick or when the school on a particular day finishes earlier than usual either because of parents’ day or because of a special holiday to commemorate the founder of the school. Moreover, during the two examination weeks (one in early February and the other in June) the school time schedule is temporarily overhauled. In these cases, parents have to make special arrangements to have their children picked up from school.
It has also to be noted that children are not the only dependents who may need care; some working couples may find themselves in the position of having to care for ageing relatives.
Thus, a policy of family-friendly work environment is based more on the practical need of economic and cultural imperatives rather than the idealism and humanitarian principle.
The political class, including that section with left-leaning ideologies, seems to have entered into an agreement with capital aimed at reaching the target or at least going as near as possible to full employment. Towards this end, governments in various European countries, including Malta, have put in place an activation policy of work. The dual-worker family fits into this activation policy being implemented in Malta by Jobsplus to push more people in the labour market.
What the foregoing implies is that family-friendly measures, rather than being simply defined as populist, have to be seen in the wider context of the social and cultural changes that have, in one way or another, affected the labour market. The new political scenario that emerged towards the end of the previous century has in one way brought about the collapse (even though not total, some may argue) of the idealistic left-leaning political ideology intent on overthrowing the capitalist system of production.
The political parties, though being of different hues, have somehow reconciled themselves to the imperatives of the market. There seems to be no visible sign of an open opposition to the pursuit of maximisation of profit. This pursuit is accepted as long as it is able to generate a trickle-down effect that elevates the plight of the workers.
In order to maintain their viability and sustain their growth, employers have to be flexible to the demands of the new society. The family-friendly measures being proposed should be seen as components of the tacit compromise that is needed to enable individuals meet exigencies of modern society. Changes in the labour market have always challenged or altered idealistic values and politics.
The model of survival for the employers should not be the mighty oak but the willow, which is able to weather the storm by using its flexibility to bend with the wind.
The employers can make Dickens look irrelevant.
Saviour Rizzo is a former director of the Centre for Labour Studies at the University of Malta.