What is the Future of the Breastfeeding Employees?

Everest Turyahikayo
Human Resource Consultant

I recently presented a paper at a conference in which I urged human resource managers in Uganda to propose amendment of the Employment Act to accommodate provisions for breastfeeding employees. The need to provide an environment in which female employees can freely breast feed their babies at the work place should be prioritized.
Most employers grant sixty days of maternity leave to female workers to allow them recover from the labour pain. This period also enables mothers to breast feed their babies for their healthy growth. After this period, employees are supposed to report to work. Some workers leave their two month old babies to house maids or relatives. Others surrender these babies to day care centres. Some employers especially in the private sector may not grant any maternity leave at all. In this case, these employees have two options. The first option is to choose raising families and give up formal employment. In this option, survival becomes difficult as families need money. The second option is to join formal employment and give up raising families. If every mother took this option, the world would face extinction as no one would procreate.
Psychologists like Sigmund Freud, Jean Piaget, Lawrence Kohlberg and Carl Rogers tell us that mothers establish a strong relationship with their children in the process of breastfeeding and the time spent together during infancy. This relationship is a great determinant of positive human behaviour right from childhood to adulthood. Research by psychologists has shown that there is a strong variation in behaviour among children who had more time with their mothers and those whose mothers abandoned them at home or day care centres for jobs. Whereas a big percentage of adults who grew up with their mothers exhibited good behaviour approved by society, the reverse was true with children from upper class families whose mothers were busy making money outside home. Children from peasant families whose mothers had enough time with them had exhibited behaviour whereas most children from families where mothers spent much time at their place of work had deviant behaviour.
There are negative consequences on the employer arising from female employees who leave their infants at home. First, performance of such employees slackens because as their breasts get filled with unsucked milk, they tend to develop fever. This makes them disconfortable and puts them in pain. As normal human beings, this category of workers miss their babies and the time they would spend performing assigned tasks is spent thinking about the infants they left at home. They sit in their offices physically while mentally they are at home.
It is important that the employment Act be amended as a matter of urgency to compel employers provide venues where breastfeeding employees can have a break time and breastfeed their babies. USA and Canada labour laws provide good examples of how this is properly done. There is need to sensitize employers on the importance of maternity leave. If our mothers had given up producing us inorder to make money, Uganda would probably be without people! The working environment should allow mothers raise their children without interference. At the same time breastfeeding employees should balance between work and raising children. This calls for equity and fairness in the contract of employment.
There is need to establish Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in Uganda. Such a commission will handle maters related to the welfare of employees including affirmative action in recruitment, fairness in remuneration, observance of safety and health policies of employees and any complaint lodged by employers.