More Child-Care Facilities Urged : Issue Is Crucial to Working Women, Labor Secretary Says

U.S. Labor Secretary Ann McLaughlin, speaking Tuesday at a women’s conference in Anaheim, called the emergence of working women the most sweeping change in the American workplace since the Great Depression but said that lack of adequate child care could force many women out of jobs.

McLaughlin’s remarks came at a luncheon address to more than 4,000 women attending state Sen. William Campbell’s Conference on Women at the Anaheim Hilton.

McLaughlin said that lack of available care for children is forcing parents into “terrifying situations” that often disrupt their working lives.

“A lack of available care can force a parent into makeshift arrangements of all kinds,” she said. “Her performance, her ability to do her job as well as she would like, must suffer. If the conflict becomes severe enough--and she can fall back on a working husband or on welfare--it can drive her from the work force.”

And because the economy has come to depend on working mothers, she said, the burgeoning need for child care will have broad ramifications.

“Today’s women are going to keep working, and they are going to have children,” McLaughlin said. “Everyone’s life is going to be touched by the child-care issue. . . . I am convinced that (it) must be a national priority. It is important to the future of work in America and to the future of the economy.”

The conference, which began Monday and will end today, is expected to attract more than 10,000 participants from throughout the state, organizers said.

With an agenda of topics and workshops ranging from stress management to careers in the automotive industry to cosmetic makeovers, the conference, which is in its sixth year, has emerged as one of the most well-attended and successful women’s gatherings in the country.

Also appearing at the conference are U.S. Ambassador to Ireland Margaret Heckler, television journalist Christine Lund, and writer Nien Cheng, author of “Life and Death in Shanghai.” The featured speaker at Tuesday night’s banquet was Jackie Collins, author of “Hollywood Wives.”

McLaughlin, 46, was appointed secretary of the Department of Labor by President Reagan in December, becoming only the second woman to hold that cabinet post, a fact she pointed out to her enthusiastic audience.

She cited Labor Department statistics that detail the growing number of women in the workplace, as well as the critical need for child care.

For example, she said, women make up 44% of the work force today, but that figure will approach 50% by the year 2000.

Almost two-thirds of the new entrants to the labor force in coming years will be women. The comparable figure for American-born white males will be only 15%, she said.

There are nearly 25 million children of working parents young enough to need supervision. Yet only 11% of employers provide child care for their workers.

In one Labor Department study, more than half of working mothers reported spending unproductive time at work due to child-care concerns.

The average annual cost of child care nationally is $3,000 per child, according to the New York-based Child Care Action Campaign, and nearly six million poor families spend a quarter of their entire income on child care.

McLaughlin, who has no children, said one of her first actions on assuming her cabinet post was to establish a child-care task force because “it is an economic and a business issue.” She said the committee will release its report next week.

‘Make-or-Break Issue’

But, she said, preliminary findings indicate that child-care problems are more than just a casual concern for working families. “It is a make-or-break issue in the work force.”

The federal government is spending billions for child care, McLaughlin said, and she praised California’s leadership in providing child-care services. The state last year spent more than $300 million for child-care services affecting some 85,000 children, she said.

But McLaughlin said she differs with those who believe a national system of child care would best serve the nation’s needs, saying the “superior wisdom” lies in individuals and not in the government.

She said employers must make a greater effort to provide for the needs of their employees, citing statistics showing that companies that provide some form of child care see dramatic decreases in absenteeism and turnover.

“The consensus is that we need improvements. The debate is about how to meet that need,” she said. “I am going to be encouraging employers--and by that I don’t mean asking nicely. If business doesn’t get off the dime, then all of us have got reason to say, ‘We’ve got to do something for our people.’ ”

Earlier in the day, a dozen Orange County feminists staged a protest of the conference at the Anaheim Hilton, charging that the event’s sponsor, Campbell, has consistently taken a stand against women’s issues.

Campbell, a Hacienda Heights Republican, said the number of women who attend the conference each year is an indication that the “seminars and topics we offer meet the needs of women in Southern California.” He called the conference “dynamic and forward-looking.”

But protesters who distributed leaflets Tuesday criticized Campbell’s voting record on women’s issues and charged that the conference is a “token gesture” designed to mask his lack of support for women.

“I think women coming to the conference are being exploited,” said Vivian Hall, co-chair of Women’s Network Alert, a coalition of Orange County feminists. “Once a year he pretends to be a friend of women, then he goes back to Sacramento and votes against the interests of women and of everyone else.” Hall participated in a similar protest last year.

Among the women who signed a statement supporting the protest were Mary Ann Gaido, a former member of the Irvine City Council; Charlene Marsh, a past chairwoman of the National Women’s Political Caucus; Margie Fites Seigle, executive director of Planned Parenthood-Orange County, and Linda Schulein, a board member of the American Jewish Committee, Orange County.

The individuals’ criticism of the use of federal funds to help underwrite the conference prompted a review by the Small Business Administration. The SBA has co-sponsored and partially subsidized the event since 1982, spending nearly $60,000 this year to print and mail brochures.

Sen. Dale Bumpers (D-Ark.), chairman of the Senate’s Small Business Committee, described the brochures distributed at the conference--officially called “Senator Campbell’s Conference on Women”--as being “flagrantly political.”

Protesters Dismissed

Campbell dismissed the protesters as “liberal Democrats” who oppose his stand against abortion and said he has supported programs that assist women in obtaining child care and in re-entering the work force.

Most conference participants said they were unaware of Campbell’s views on women’s issues, and a few said they would become better informed before attending another conference.

“I heard about the conference through my mother and didn’t really know anything about Campbell,” said Jean Heller, a 30-year-old Los Angeles businesswoman. “I think if some of his positions are anti-women, it would make me think twice about coming next year. There are enough of these types of conferences around that you could find what you wanted elsewhere.”