Excluding parental grief: A critical discourse analysis of bereavement accommodation in Canadian labour standards
BACKGROUND: Grief following child loss is profoundly destabilizing with serious long-term repercussions for bereaved parents. Employed parents may need time away from work to deal with this loss. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to reflect upon the ways labour policies and practices respond...
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Veröffentlicht in: | Work (Reading, Mass.) Mass.), 2015-01, Vol.50 (3), p.511-526 |
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Sprache: | eng |
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Zusammenfassung: | BACKGROUND: Grief following child loss is profoundly destabilizing with serious long-term repercussions
for bereaved parents. Employed parents may need time away from work to deal with this loss.
OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to reflect upon the ways
labour policies and practices respond to parental bereavement.
METHODS: Critical discourse analysis was used to examine labour
policies and practices related to employment leave for bereaved parents in
Canada. Results were compared to international labour standards.
RESULTS: Universally, employment policies provide only for the
practical issues of bereavement. Commonly, leave is three days, unpaid, and
meant to enable ceremonial obligations. Policies do not acknowledge the
long-term suffering caused by grief or the variable intensity of different
kinds of loss. Managerial, moral, normative and neoliberal values embedded in
these policies efface the intensely personal experience of grief, thereby
leaving employees at risk for serious health and workplace safety issues.
CONCLUSIONS: Bereavement leave currently understands grief as a
generic, time-limited state with instrumental tasks and ceremonial obligations.
In contrast, research characterizes responses to child loss as intense, highly
personal experiences for which healing and recovery can take years. This
disconnect is especially problematic when viewed through the lens of employee
wellbeing, reintegration and workplace productivity. |
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ISSN: | 1051-9815 1875-9270 |
DOI: | 10.3233/WOR-141957 |