Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies • Hacker News Board

Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies

#171

Post by roenxi » Sat, Jun 16, 2018, 12:51 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #149

roenxi wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are, obviously, completely correct on the point that you raise. However, I am sold on those sort of laws on the basis that employers are discriminating on irrelevant dimensions, like race and gender. An employee expecting, or indeed planning , to take a X months leave Y months after joining, with X > Y, isn't an irrelevant dimension. Especially if parental leave is paid, but I don't know if that is how the US han…

While we're at it, why shouldn't any prospective employee with a health condition that might require extensive time off be required to disclose that? And, since people aren't often the best judge of their health conditions and the impositions they'll make on future employers, perhaps it'd be better if we all just disclosed our complete medical records along with our job applications.

Well, philosophically, at some point yes. There should be some level of personal responsibility not to sign up for a job that you don't intend to do. I don't think being required to provide detailed medical records is reasonable, a good faith, optimistic best-case is enough for me.

And while you might see pregnancy as equivalent to having a medical condition there are actually a number of fairly important differences. For example, in the modern era, pregnancy is more controllable than illness. Quite a number of people enthusiastically plan on it. Those aspects, intent and control, are important for determining who should bear the cost. The cost should not settle on an unwitting employer looking for a new hire.

Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies

#172

Post by R_haterade » Sat, Jun 16, 2018, 12:54 AM UTC

lhorie wrote: post #119

habosa wrote: post #55

This area is really tough. I feel terrible for women who experience this bias, but the solution is not nearly as obvious as with race/gender/age/religious/etc discrimination. In those cases the answer is: stop being biased. Let's say you're a small company and you can really only afford to have Even if they both plan to have 2 kids in the next 4 years, it's a biological reality that it will take the woman away from w…

If you can only afford 10 people, you can usually also get by with 9. Even a healthy male full-time employee is a much bigger commitment financially to a company than just the salary number (i.e. you need to pay payroll taxes, insurance, benefits, equipment, recruiter fees, etc) If you're going to be stretched thin financially after hiring a single new person, you probably shouldn't be hiring.

[flagged]

Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies

#173

Post by R_haterade » Sat, Jun 16, 2018, 12:58 AM UTC

lhorie wrote: post #148

Teever wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you can only afford 10 people, you can usually also get by with 9. With that kind of logic why should the company even bother hiring a 10th person?

Because it has money in the bank, and it wants to invest it into growth. Let's put it this way: if 9 people can only produce enough revenue to pay for themselves, it would be risky to take on a new large client if doing so required an upfront investment that completely depleted your cash reserves. If things went south and you couldn't capitalize on your investment, you'd have no way to fund a pivot or a recovery stra…

You obviously live in inflated-margin land. I'm going to guess NY, SF, CS, or greater Denver (maybe austin) or worse, Academia.

Startups don't work this way in heavy industry, especially when jobs are on the line.

I envy you, actually.

Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies

#174

Post by existencebox » Sat, Jun 16, 2018, 12:58 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #158

existencebox wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's something that has always nagged at me in these discussions, and I've always been somewhat afraid to bring it up lest I misconstrue, but I want to try and figure this out. What's a state of affairs we can reach such that people don't become preemptively discriminatory for lack of being able to examine factors that would impact workplace performance? We agree, societally, that we shouldn't discriminate against…

> However, we don't live in a world where a business is spared the cost incurred by that. We also live in a world where the stock market ceases to exist if there isn’t a new generation of consumers and workers. (Facebook’s stock price is predicated on the idea that 1 years from now there will still be young people to advertise to.) Children create internalized costs (to parents, to businesses that hire parents), but…

First, as threatofrain correctly surmised, I'm not disagreeing for a moment that it's a necessity. I'm questioning if we're going about it with the right tools. Nostrademons pointed out very aptly how the current approach is falling short.

Your own example seems like a great point to make of the exact sort of perverse incentives one can create though. Tons of discussions lately about the gig economy and lack of worker protections. I'm not convinced this isn't at least in part related to the cost of full time workers vs. contractors.

As I said in my response to Rayiner, saying "We disallow this legally" simply isn't sufficient to prevent behavior, to my eyes. As a society, it's illegal to pursue corporate fraud, yet a board of political luminaries will back it, to be topical about things. It's illegal to discriminate vs. age, yet those threads pervade HN.

Would I like to live in a world where we didn't need to play incentive games/work around unconcious bias, absolutely, but that's simply not my (pessimistic) view of things.

Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies

#175

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jun 16, 2018, 12:59 AM UTC

ryanobjc wrote: post #160

whatshisface wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's amazing to me that a single company can be simultaneously fending off the recently-sealed Damore suit and still be discriminating against women. It's as if it's lip service on both sides, while all actions are just made in the company's interest (rolling over employee's interests whenever they contradict it, discrimination or not).

I hate to be rude but why are you surprised? Companies are not a single person and that goes extra for big companies. It’s possible for all of the above to be true. Don’t forget local managers and do things against company policy which causes weird stories like the above.

[deleted]

Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies

#176

Post by Barrin92 » Sat, Jun 16, 2018, 1:00 AM UTC

threatofrain wrote: post #163

rayiner wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, we don't live in a world where a business is spared the cost incurred by that. We also live in a world where the stock market ceases to exist if there isn’t a new generation of consumers and workers. (Facebook’s stock price is predicated on the idea that 1 years from now there will still be young people to advertise to.) Children create internalized costs (to parents, to businesses that hire parents), but…

One interpretation of existencebox is that he has already assumed the moral position that shielding pregnancies is wholesome for society, but he's asking the policy question of where the money should come from, or if government should get involved in evening out the burden. On a tangential matter, I think many people would agree that society should consider financial help for children in poverty. But who should pay?…

>but he's asking the policy question of where the money should come from, or if government should get involved in evening out the burden.

From the businesses. Paid paternal leave is already a legal mandate in just about every country. The US is very lacking in this regard.

Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies

#177

Post by baybal2 » Sat, Jun 16, 2018, 1:00 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #75

tinbad wrote: post #14

Personally experienced it. Wife worked at Google, had always positive performance reviews. Come pregnancy time she informed her manager, 3 days later they put her on a performance improvement plan. It didn't take long for them to realize they were making a big mistake, risking an expensive lawsuit so they let it go and let her have her paid 12 month leave. After returning she got the choice to do the PIP or take seve…

My wife interviewed at Google and was asked how she'd be able to meet the requirements of the job while taking care of young children; the discrimination persists even after pregnancy.

I think money there speak more frankly than words. If all high six digit figure developer hires were of "near existential" importance for a company/unit/project, why to go to such extend as looking for most elaborate ways of chasing out female developers who are expecting, or are with kids?

Tptacek, I'm usually antagonistic with you for you appearing to me to be too apologetic of people I call "dotcommies," yet now I see you voicing your opposition. On what side are you on?

Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies

#178

Post by ensignavenger » Sat, Jun 16, 2018, 1:05 AM UTC

existencebox wrote: post #142

tptacek wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife interviewed at Google and was asked how she'd be able to meet the requirements of the job while taking care of young children; the discrimination persists even after pregnancy.

There's something that has always nagged at me in these discussions, and I've always been somewhat afraid to bring it up lest I misconstrue, but I want to try and figure this out. What's a state of affairs we can reach such that people don't become preemptively discriminatory for lack of being able to examine factors that would impact workplace performance? We agree, societally, that we shouldn't discriminate against…

Everyone has to juggle various demands on their time. You could just as easily make the question more generic, and ask everyone "do you have a good track record or gameplan for keeping up with personal obligations and balancing them with your professional obligations as an employee?" Of course my answer to that question would be 'yes'.

Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies

#179

Post by tptacek » Sat, Jun 16, 2018, 1:05 AM UTC

existencebox wrote: post #170

tptacek wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am very much the wrong person for you to recruit in an attempt to apply the axiomatic method to discrimination laws. Discriminating against pregnant women is wrong because it's wrong, full stop.

Your statement of "recruit" is exactly the sort of misconstruction I was hoping to avoid. threatofrain got it right. This is a problem we need to address, but the solutions I've seen thus far don't take unfortunate pathologies of human psychology into account, and when we don't do that, we get very surprised at the lack of results down the line. You're more than willing to try to live in a world where you say "Becaus…

I'm not interested.

Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies

#180

Post by existencebox » Sat, Jun 16, 2018, 1:06 AM UTC

Barrin92 wrote: post #176

threatofrain wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One interpretation of existencebox is that he has already assumed the moral position that shielding pregnancies is wholesome for society, but he's asking the policy question of where the money should come from, or if government should get involved in evening out the burden. On a tangential matter, I think many people would agree that society should consider financial help for children in poverty. But who should pay?…

>but he's asking the policy question of where the money should come from, or if government should get involved in evening out the burden. From the businesses. Paid paternal leave is already a legal mandate in just about every country. The US is very lacking in this regard.

Actually; that (From the business) is the part I don't agree with. (You're right that the US is comparatively lacking, however)

As Rayiner accurately points out, children are clearly necessary from a societal point of view. Thus, it seems "most fair" for the whole society to bear that, and for it to not be unevenly distributed such that it generates perverse incentives for business owners.