According to Business New Zealand, mothers don't need legislation ensuring their employers make provision for them to breastfeed. Phil O'Reilly, Chief Executive of Business NZ, claims 'employers [are] naturally in favour of adequate meal and rest breaks and provision for breastfeeding mothers', but sees no evidence that breaks are required. Says Phil, 'in thousands of workplaces across the country employers and employees make sensible agreements in their mutual interests without having written rules'. There's no problem, so there's nothing to fix.
Workplaces differ, but in my experience there aren't many in which women feel comfortably able to breastfeed, and still fewer where employers and workers hold hands and sing Kum Ba Ya as Phil seems to imagine. The workforce is a social institution which has made few changes to accommodate women and our home responsibilities. Only a few short years ago, women fought for the right to paid parental leave. If a man could sustain a rugby injury and receive 80% of his wage from ACC, we argued, a woman surely ought to get paid leave for doing something almost as valuable as playing rugby: bringing a child into the world.
Of course, women workers have made some gains, including paid parental leave, but the expectation remains that when a worker arrives at work, he or she leaves his home life at the door. I think this is harder for women, not just because women tend to do more work in the home than men, but also – whether because of nature or nurture – women often can't emotionally disengage from their kids readily. Leaving my daughter in care for the first time was one of the worst moments of my life; and during almost every work day I've had since, I've carried out my employment while simultaneously fretting about whether my daughter is wearing her school jersey in this chilly weather, or wondering if my son's nose is running or he's refusing to eat his sandwiches.
The right to breastfeed at work is about a great deal more than ensuring babies receive the health benefits of breast milk. If that was all that mattered, women could express milk and drop it off at crèches with their babies. Breastfeeding at work is about asserting that workers aren't automatons whose emotions and responsibilities disappear when they clock on; and that women should not have to forfeit the right to bond with their babies if they also choose to work. It's also an issue of employers acknowledging their responsibilities to support public health, unpaid work and women workers' wellbeing.
These are not responsibilities which Business NZ is too eager to meet – hence Phil O'Reilly's spasms of illogic. If employers are adequately supporting breastfeeding mothers, you'd think there would be no harm in matching law to existing practice. Not so: Phil warns us that calls for breastfeeding breaks are not based on objective evidence, and cautions of a shadowy 'danger of getting prescriptive rules that make things worse'.
Read on, though, and you'll soon find the real reason for Business NZ's objection to breastfeeding breaks: regulation 'harms the profitability of firms'. And given the choice between profitability and a small concession to the welfare of mothers, babies and the community, it's pretty clear which Business NZ chooses.
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