Oceanside to Let Workers Bring Children to Office in Emergency Situations

City employees facing “an emergency situation” may bring their children to work under an unusual and controversial policy adopted Wednesday by the City Council.

The policy, initially drafted by an employees’ task force and fine-tuned by a council committee over the summer, permits children to accompany their parents on the job on a temporary basis when it is deemed “mutually beneficial” for Oceanside and the worker.

An employee’s supervisor would consult a list of guidelines in evaluating a request to bring a child to work in certain emergencies, such as illness, school holidays, sudden adoption or the sickness of a baby sitter.

A supervisor would consider, for example, whether the employee might use sick leave or vacation time to stay home with the child, whether the employee had exhausted all alternative child care options, whether the nature of the employee’s work was vital enough to warrant his or her attendance with a child and whether the child was healthy or might affect the health of others in the workplace.

First in County?

Oceanside’s policy, which stirred a flurry of controversy when it was proposed, may be the first of its kind in San Diego County, Assistant City Manager Bill Workman said. A survey of the county’s largest cities--San Diego, Escondido, El Cajon, Chula Vista, Carlsbad and National City--appeared to confirm his view.

Officials in these communities said that no such policy exists in their cities and that the issue of children in the workplace had never come up. Many added, however, that in certain instances, depending on the mood of the boss, children had been permitted on the job for brief periods--after school or before a doctor’s appointment, for example.

“If there is some special circumstance, then I’d say it’s left to the supervisor’s discretion to be flexible about it,” said Jane Paradowski, Escondido’s manager of human resources. “But it’s on a case-by-case basis and it only goes so far. If you’re in the automotive department, for example, you’re probably out of luck.”

Officials in most San Diego County cities generally frowned on Oceanside’s policy, saying that children would be disruptive in the workplace and would create an unprofessional atmosphere.

‘Kids Belong in the Home’

The lone Oceanside councilman to vote against the policy was Sam Williamson, a father of three who said that “kids belong in the home, not the workplace,” and expressed concerns about Oceanside’s liability should a child be injured while at City Hall.

“I think children are distracting, very distracting,” Williamson said after the vote. “You can’t make them sit still like animals. Youngsters like to move around, and if they’re moving around, they’re taking employees’ attention off their work.”

Williamson also called the policy unfair. Although secretaries and other clerical workers might manage to perform their tasks while looking after a child, he said, balancing workload and parenting would be virtually impossible for firefighters.