How can businesses slowly re-open if schools don't go back?

[trumpisaflump]

I've been thinking about this all day. A few of my friends are taking great delight I think in forecasting that schools won't go back until August (Scotland). And even at that it will be part time classes to allow social distancing. So an I wrong in thinking if this is correct them business will not be able to return as families/parents will have children at home?
It's been going through my mind all day and I don't know how we can have one without the other. Any ideas?

Parker

You can sack people for not going to work, don't be ridiculous. It's not the employers fault if parents don't have childcare, it's not a right, you know
it's up to parents to work out which one works or how they split working time between them.

You can make people redundant if their role no longer exists. Dismissals for not coming to work isn’t redundancy. Dismissing a women (who tend to be lower paid and therefore has greater responsibilities for childcare) as opposed to her male colleague in the same role, can be indirect sex discrimination.

it's up to parents to work out which one works

But we have an economy built around a large number of households where both parents work. If that changes, spending is going to drop massively (= lots of other people losing their jobs and businesses going bust), lots of people will lose their houses... it's not as simple as "well we didn't usually have 2-parent f/t working families decades ago so we'll go back to that."

I’ve been pondering this too. Lone parent to DD8 and DS6. I work part time between school hours 3 days a week, with wraparound childcare from grandma for my two full days.

I would hope that seeing as I’ve been successfully wfh, I’d be allowed to continue this on my non-grandma days until the schools reopen properly. (Lovely Grandma is a key worker and arranges shifts around us so cannot do extra days, and I wouldn’t expect her to.)

I’ve been with same organisation for 10 years so I hope they will be accommodating, If not, then I’ll be well and truly stuck.

You can’t make people redundant due to lack of childcare - it’s discriminatory to women as women tend to be lower paid. Many of my team rely on breakfast and after school clubs, as well as full time school hours (as we did when DC’s were younger). I’m not making brilliant, hard working professionals redundant. It would be a false economy. Who would do their work?

I'm not a lawyer so I have no idea if this is actually true, but the bottom line is that it hardly matters.

Great that you wouldn't make someone redundant for not coming to work because of child care, but it is blindingly obvious that this does not hold true for employers as a class - they obviously need their employees to turn up.

To say nothing of the fact that not everyone is a 'professional' either by way of vocation or temperament.

@MarginalGain I am a lawyer and it is incorrect. Parents do have certain rights for “unpaid leave” in respect of caring responsibilities, but they are limited (depend on time served and usually can only be taken in 1 week periods). If you can’t go to work outside the amount of unpaid leave allowed then your employer can dismiss you.

@StrawberryBlondeStar really? Well this is depressing. I guess in millions of households one parent will have to leave their job. This is awful.

GoldenOmber

We may not have any choice than go back to then. do you really think people will be able to keep their jobs if they don't turn in for work, just because they have no childcare.
Previous generations had to manage, so why shouldn't this?
They scrimped and saved so they didn't have to have latch key kids, some who had to work had to leave kids to fend for themselves.
Not ideal but doubt employers will keep paying twice, once for an employee to sit at home with dc and again for someone to actually do the job.
I can't believe how entitled some people are to think this is right, that somehow they are entitled to a job when they have kids and no childcare. It beggars belief tbh.

@GoldenOmber I absolutely do have childcare but the government have classed them at high risk being over 70 so I can't use them.

I'm a single parent working from home. The sooner schools reopen the better. Businesses will be able to reopen, but a huge section of society will be screwed without the schools

@trumpisaflump really. Unless the government brings in some scheme/law to protect employees in this situation (so for example extends furlough scheme after June and/or if it limits it includes employees with childcare responsibilities) then employers won’t have to keep you on if you can’t do your job.
M

@Devlesko sorry my last comment was for you. Millions of us have childcare but we can't use any of them just now. No holiday clubs, no wraparound school clubs, can't use grandparents. If this beggars belief for you can you suggest where else we would get our childcare from?

Dismissing a women (who tend to be lower paid and therefore has greater responsibilities for childcare) as opposed to her male colleague in the same role, can be indirect sex discrimination

Well clearly. But if they also dismiss men for not fronting up to work, then it’s not. Your case only works if they dismiss then women and keep the men when both are not fronting up to work.

Clearly employers are able to dismiss you if you’re unable to do your role. Some employers will be big enough they can allow unpaid leave. Many will not.

Ultimately Covid or no Covid, if you can’t do your job then you can’t expect to remain employed. Male or female.

If you’re sitting praying for schools to be kept closed so you don’t need to work, and hoping you will some how keep your job and get paid for the next six months, then you’ve only yourself to blame for what’s about to come.

trumpisaflump

So, you haven't got childcare then.
Would/could/will have is different than has currently got.

I agree with Bluntness
Unless men are kept on for not turning up, and women aren't, then it's hardly discrimination.
Couples can always go with the lower earner to give the women a fair choice. This is down to the couple to decide, we chose the lower income, I earned loads more than my dh, but we managed, just cut right back on everything, and had no luxuries, because that worked better for us.

It's going to be a really difficult time. If lots of people will lose their jobs maybe we need to think about continuing the furlough scheme or replacing it with universal credit and stop worrying about reopening schools to get the economy started. Maybe society should go into hibernation until we have strong contact tracing and quarantine arrangements. Things won't go back to normal and businesses will fold unless we can ... maybe patience and more support from the government. We have only just stopped paying out to support the bank bailouts and the Bank of England could apply another round of quantitative easing, devalue the pound again and put the whole economy on ice until things improve. The whole world is in the same boat. We need to stop thinking about "The Economy " in terms of our own households. There is money to keep everyone- food production hasn't stopped and we still have electricity and water. Sending schools back in some strange rota system is disruptive and impossible to work round - supporting everyone with benefits until we get new cases down to

I can't speak for other teaching staff, but I know my colleagues feel strongly that schools are there to educate, and not provide child care. Yes, of course many people rely on kids being at school, so they can work, but the schooling provides, primarily, education. Many teachers I work with have to sort childcare for their pre-school children. A poster mentioned about schools opening more widely to provide childcare so other staff could take up this option. I really don't think this would be acceptable - the teachers want to teach, whether that is face to face or google classroom, etc. And it would blur the lines, if teachers were providing child care, those same teachers would then be back to teacher mode when schools did re-open.
I know it's a huge problem and issue, and very worrying.

So, you haven't got childcare then.

No, nobody has got childcare because for 99% there isn’t any childcare. It is not there. It has gone. It needs to come back in some form if the economy isn’t going to take an even bigger battering than it’s already lined up for.

Sending schools back in some strange rota system is disruptive and impossible to work round

This is the main point. There is no country with anything like our infection / death rates which has, or is planning to, send children back into school 'as normal'.

So any return to school will be partial, and will not provide childcare for full time work (especially as full time work generally requires wrap-around childcare from childminders, after school clubs, sports clubs, grandparents - all of which will be either unavailable or working on a tiny fraction of their usual capacity.

Open schools for the benefit of children, and with working conditions / rotas that make it adequately safe for both adults and children - yes. Open schools 'to benefit the economy' - no, because safe opening won't help the economy because it won't allow parents to return to full time predictable working and full opening is far too risky.

The argument that people will just have to cope is not really that simple. Many people can’t afford childcare, or can’t manage on only one wage and to be honest there will quite possibly not be enough childcare available due to huge rise in demand.

I had childcare, but she's shielding her child, so.now I.have no.childcare.
If I can't go to work cos I don't have childcare, that's another teacher out of the mix, which means fewer students can.be taught in.school.

italian

Well what do you propose they do instead of cope?
You can't force kids to school when it isn't safe to do so. Surely, we'll have to cope one way or another.
People couldn't afford childcare in times gone by neither, they had to manage. People used to live on one wage, if there are redundancies or losing jobs through lack of childcare, then yes, these people will have to cope too.
You cope or flounder, it's nature.

Many years ago no one thought twice about kids being left home alone. Now you get social services called on you when in our grand parents day your have been responsible for babysitting your siblings and preparing dinner at that age.

There is no "coping" you either fail to make your mortgage or rent payments and lose your home and then struggle to even buy somewhere affordable with a shit credit rating or you both work and cover payments.

This is veering off-topic, but you can't compare how people used to manage without childcare in previous decades. Housing used to be far cheaper. It's not possible to manage in the same way now that a far larger income is needed to sustain even a modest household.

We also do not want to return to a time when more women were financially dependent on their male partners, making it very difficult to leave a problematic relationship.

@Devlesko that's great, but some of us are single parents. My wage is the ONLY wage.

"Previous generations had to manage, so why shouldn't this?"

Actually I think it's a bit of a myth that previous generations survived on one wage. In my experience (limited I know) the people who survived on one wage were the middle classes. The working classes very much needed two incomes.

However regardless of previous generations, we live in a generation where both men and women work. Mortgages are based on 2 incomes.
The childcare industry (nannies, childminders, nurseries, afterschool) need children or that's a whole industry collapsing around us and a load of people redundant. There is also that grey line between nursery care and preschool education.