Is it wise for companies to lay off people now?

SOCIAL STUDIES - Published Monday April 27th, 2009

I am not sure what the weekend will bring, but it seems to me that the last week was a very slow news week for our province. In fact, if it were not for the continued wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as the economy, there would be almost no news in the country.

Sometimes, however, there are news items that slip by us and we never even notice. I have a computer program that "feeds" news stories to me and I then look back over the major stories from a number of sources to see what is happening in the world. Every now and again there is something that makes me shake my head; which did not get the type of press it deserved.

The issue that did not rise to the surface this week has to do with women who are fired while on maternity leave.

Technically, this is illegal. Philosophically, it is immoral. Practically, it is easier. That something is easier does not make it right. Apparently the amount of women who have their employment terminated while on maternity leave has quadrupled in the last few months.

Now, when push comes to shove the companies involved will tell you that it is the economy that is to be blamed. Perhaps the job became redundant during the year you were off. Either way, it is supposed to be protected, and we are supposed to value motherhood and family and children.

I am beginning to wonder if there is not just a whole lot of underground misogyny that has never been dealt with in our society.

I will come back to that, but let's talk about job layoffs for just a second.

A couple of weeks ago Statistics Canada released information that the unemployment rate jumped to a seven-year high of eight per cent last month and the economy has lost 61,300 more jobs. This means we have seen the sharpest five-month employment decline since the 1982 recession.

On average, economists had forecast 55,000 jobs would be lost, though some estimates had been for as much as 90,000. Now, I am not an economist, that is for sure; but I simply fail to understand this. Economic downturns, recessions, even depressions are short-lived scenarios. Historically they last three months on average. Admittedly, this may be one of those year and half to two-year deviations from the norm, but still.

Are companies letting go of workers just because other companies are letting go workers? What about the looming crisis in employment when the last of the baby boomers bows off the stage? I think most of our companies will be scrambling in six months to find employees, and in the end, they might even end up having to offer more incentives and higher wages to attract a workforce.

This does not make any sense. Of course, I am naïve enough to believe in George Bailey Economics from the Ole Bailey Savings and Loan in the movie "It's a Wonderful Life." His argument during the Depression was that we should all hang in there together, share what we have, and each of us will come out the other side with a roof over our heads, and food on our plates.

All by way of explaining where I am coming from with the maternity leave issue. Why do we always seem to be hurting our poorest, our weakest, and our most vulnerable? Why would we fire people as they end maternity leave just to make a few bucks?

Let me make it clear that there are three issues at play here for me.

First, women are not treated as equals in our society. Like it or not they have to go through a whole lot more than men do. If you do not believe me, drive around in the passenger seat of a car with a woman driving for a while and see how many people cut them off.

You could also try finding a woman who does the exact same job that you do and see what they have to do extra that you do not in order to be treated the same as you.

My second issue is it takes two adults working full-time, and then some, to provide for the average family. No matter how much rhetoric we have about family first initiatives, they are a lie. If we valued family we would make it easier to have one and to take care of one. If we valued families, milk would not be five times the price of soda pop. If we valued families health and education would be at the top of the totem pole in terms or political issues, not business and economy. There would also be more family friendly restaurants, attractions, shopping establishments; all of which are only tokenly designed for families.

And my third and final point is this. Women really do have to choose between career and kids.

Most of the time they probably thought they could leave their jobs and come back safely, as the system was designed to allow, but even so, when you take time off for kids you do not get as far advanced in your career, you lose a year of experience and a lot of other things.

The fact that it seems even less safe now to have a baby is not going to make women feel any less vulnerable. When we create tiered systems in society we are depriving everyone of their right to a share of equality.

One thing is for sure, we need to pay more attention to the fallout as society changes, there are things happening that will make it worse for everyone.