Parents are vital to the social fabric and the development of future leaders. People who step up to care for elderly family members or family members with disabilities or illness accept a similarly necessary and challenging vocation. As anyone who has provided unpaid care to a family member knows, fulfilling these commitments always requires sacrifice. The commitment to this work is lauded in the public sphere, but it is often punished, rather than rewarded, in the workplace.  

Employers routinely discriminate against workers with family commitments and often view a person’s role as a family caregiver as a liability instead of an asset. Low-wage workers in particular are the most vulnerable to having their workplace rights violated because of their family responsibilities; for them, the consequences are the most dire.

Keira McNett and Laura Brown founded First Shift Justice Project in 2014 to protect workers in their “first shift” of paid employment so they can fulfill the responsibilities of their “second shift,” providing unpaid care for family members.

Over many years of working with people in low-wage jobs, First Shift’s founders met many parents who lost their jobs due to the birth of a child or the need to care for a disabled, elderly or ailing family member. When they became parents themselves, they began to understand these challenges in an even deeper way.

First Shift Justice Project better serves caregiving workers by using a preventive, client-centered approach to reach families, educate them about their rights, and enable them to exercise their rights without shame. By educating and supporting working parents to assert their rights before they lose their jobs or their workplace stress becomes untenable, First Shift helps them safely maintain their employment, their health and their family commitments. 

Caregiving workers who are empowered to proactively address work/family conflicts become a force for affecting cultural change and creating work environments where employees and employers can expect to have respectful, productive conversations about family caregiving and the overall well-being of families.