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Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies

nytimes.com

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

#291

Post by cobbzilla »

To reproduce this error:

1. Create a law that penalizes companies for activities against current employees with attribute X (or who might have attribute X in the future)

2. Watch as companies ride the grey-line getting away with as much as they can whilst (a) staying within the letter of the law and (b) creatively discriminating to avoid hiring anyone who has (or might in the future have) attribute X.

I'm not making a moral judgement, but when you set the system up like this can you really be surprised by the results?

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

#292

Post by fixermark »

Fundamentally, this is one of those places where if we want to change policy, the government needs to step in.

If we want companies to honor paternity and maternity leave, then when a parent takes such leave, the government needs to soak the employee's salary and benefits. 100%, no questions asked, full stop.

Any less is incentive for every company in the marketplace to find every excuse to cut parents out of the loop for costing more per-hour-unit-of-work than an equivalent employee with no children.

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

#293

Post by eanzenberg »

roenxi wrote: post #171
tptacek wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Holy moly.. sorry but you should seek out help for your own medical condition: autism.

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

#294

Post by dnomad »

metiscus wrote: post #273
Spooky23 wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you work in an incestuous industry like tech, you will be blacklisted in many circles for going down this path.

Those situations can often be solved in much the same way. If someone is giving out malicious references due to an enforcement action, you report it to the EEOC or other agencies. That is also a violation and can result in further action on your behalf. Many states have statutes on the books against blacklisting and you may be able to engage the state DOL or other agencies to help you. These agencies have the full we…

This is not likely to be the case. It is not so easy to pursue a retaliation complaint. I suggest you look at the case law history here. America is not France where the courts almost always side with employees. It's just the opposite. There's a very high bar for retaliation complaints and it's getting higher all the time [1]. These days you basically need a confession from your employer to establish that the retaliation was the "determinative factor."

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/25/business/supreme-court-ra...

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

#295

Post by eanzenberg »

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…

Excuse me for being flippant but, I don't care if you're a 10- or 10,000- person company, but I'm going to take >4 weeks of vacation per year and if you can't handle that then you don't deserve to exist in the market.

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

#296

Post by blahedo »

hotdog97 wrote: post #47
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…

How many days/months/years between a) joining the company and b) informing of the pregnancy? I know the law doesn't care, but I care. There's a difference between informing your manager one month after you're hired that you're pregnant (been there, felt totally fooled - as the manager, that is) and will need to take time off quite soon, and doing it like a year or so later. The "always positive performance reviews" b…

A friend of mine interviewed and was hired while pregnant, and disclosed that fact immediately after signing her contract. The response, correctly, was "Oh. Well, we'll make that work." And they did.

That's both the legal thing to do and the ethical thing to do. What else are you proposing?

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

#297

Post by ryanobjc »

AFNobody wrote: post #195
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…

> We agree, societally, that we shouldn't discriminate against parents. However, we don't live in a world where a business is spared the cost incurred by that. The policy solution is: - A per-child negative income tax sufficient to cover the risk/impact of employer discrimination. - Give mothers and fathers equal leave. - Limit the compulsory work week to 50 hours for salaried (or overtime hourly) employees. - Penalt…

Other solutions, since we aren't going to see policy solutions in the US anytime soon, might include: - insurance to help companies pay for parental leave - state level policies (eg: California, but it only has 6 weeks which is hilariously short) - stronger enforcement of current laws

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

#298

Post by ryanobjc »

fixermark wrote: post #292

Fundamentally, this is one of those places where if we want to change policy, the government needs to step in. If we want companies to honor paternity and maternity leave, then when a parent takes such leave, the government needs to soak the employee's salary and benefits. 100%, no questions asked, full stop. Any less is incentive for every company in the marketplace to find every excuse to cut parents out of the loo…

So what do you do when you have high risk scenarios that are semi-rare but semi-predictable, combined with a high loss when they happen?

It's called insurance.

That's the private/"market" based solution to privatizing and sharing risk across a pool. Given it's kind of an impossible thing to fake, there isn't much risk of false claims.

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

#299

Post by sattoshi »

Jedi72 wrote: post #71
sattoshi wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You neglect the technological progress. It will be cheaper for you to retire as pleasantly as the boomers, despite having less money.

This is a fallacy because there isnt some level of comfort people want to hit to comfortably retire, it will always be relative to the society around them.

Is there not? I just want my basic needs met, have someone to talk to and perhaps some forms of entertainment.

I don't think I'm in a minority.

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

#300

Post by sieabahlpark »

eanzenberg wrote: post #295
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…

Excuse me for being flippant but, I don't care if you're a 10- or 10,000- person company, but I'm going to take >4 weeks of vacation per year and if you can't handle that then you don't deserve to exist in the market.

Whoosh, your 4 weeks isn't comparable to 2 months of degraded quality of life and recovery after pregnancy. Not to mention the children if the father is also working full time.
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