Originally from: AAA Handbook on Employment Arbitration and ADR - 2nd Edition

As of March 2001, the American work force included 50.4 million employees with children under the age of 18.1 Considering that 8.9 million of these workers represent single parents and 32.3 million are from two wage-earner households, it is apparent that the employment obligations of millions of employees must be balanced against these workers’ family responsibilities. In many cases, employees will be able to successfully harmonize and satisfy these competing constraints. Yet in other situations, workers may be confronted with circumstances where they must choose between two difficult options: subordinating the welfare of their family to that of the workplace, or conversely, the interests of the workplace to that of their family. At the same time, employers are placed in the precarious position of responding to employee requests for the accommodation of family needs while maintaining workplace efficiency. Within the framework of grievance arbitration, these issues materialize where firms discipline employees who have refused management directives in order to address and respond to family obligations.