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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

#381

Post by AFNobody »

ryanobjc wrote: post #297
AFNobody wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

True, I agree under an ideal framework including a form of insurance for parental leave could also work in place of the negative income tax.

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

#382

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

tomp wrote: post #136
jschwartzi wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It actually isn't a biological reality that the woman is away from work for longer. What's actually happening is that the man isn't expected to be away as long as the woman, so he doesn't take as much leave. It's a form of discrimination to make it the woman's problem because she's the one laid up in the hospital. Just because women are bearing the physical burden of the pregnancy, it doesn't mean it's solely their b…

How can you say this with a straight face?! It's a fact that (some) women need to stay off work (bed-ridden before birth, in hospital after birth). It's also a fact that men don't need to. Obviously, men don't need to work and women don't need to take care of the kids (above and beyond what's biologically required of them), but (1) on average, outcomes will be influenced by underlying biological reality, and (2) it's…

>> It's a fact that (some) women need to stay off work (bed-ridden before birth, in hospital after birth).

Note: some pregnant women need to stay off work, but all women are treated in the same way by their employers.

That is unfair.

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

#383

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

paxys wrote: post #302
eanzenberg wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There is a huge difference between a few weeks of vacation a year (probably taken in 1-2 week chunks) and multiple continuous months of parental leave. The latter can absolutely kill a startup, especially when the person leaving is a subject matter expert in a critical area.

Third time I post this: my partner's company is a small startup of ~12 people and 7 of their women employees became pregnant and had babies while working for them. One of them was a very important manager, who gave birth to twins and came back within a month. The company is doing just fine, thank you.

If a startup dies because it's hiring human beings, it should maybe start to pivot into employing dogs? Or robots, of course.

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

#384

Post by xav0989 »

emptybits wrote: post #132
saagarjha wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a society, we've decided that being able to continue the population is more important than the fortunes of any particular startup. Maybe we could take this out of the hands of the startup and have society subsidize it?

Some societies do. I'm writing from Canada. Mother and/or father can share up to 35 weeks of paid leave under the national insurance program. This maxes out at, I think, approx $500 per week. It's not a lot. But it helps. Regarding societal values, this the same program that would normally pay you temporarily if you were laid off (not by choice). Normally you wouldn't be eligible to collect benefits if you willingly…

IIRC, it's 15 weeks at 55% for maternal benefits (only for the birth mother), and either 35 weeks of parental benefits at 55% or 61 weeks of parental benefits at 33% (can be shared between parents of biological or adopted child). And I'm sure many employers do top it off somewhat.

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

#385

Post by mac01021 »

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'm the father of a young child. No company would ever ask me this question. But maybe they should.

Because I'm just as distracted from my work/career by my toddler as any mother would be. And if they decided not to hire me on account of that I certainly would not blame them.

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

#386

Post by crunchlibrarian »

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…

It's ok to name companies that do bad things, even if it's effectively a powerful company like Google. Especially if it's a powerful company like Google, they are almost a nation-state at this point.

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

#387

Post by doktrin »

nostrademons wrote: post #184
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…

So here's a concrete example of the types of problems existencebox is highlighting: My sister was laid off from her employer of 8 years 3 months after her first child was born. She was a top performer, and they'd been throwing raises and bonuses at her before she got pregnant. Over the same year or so (there were 3-4 rounds of layoffs), every single pregnant woman or mother with kids under 2 that she knew at the comp…

Weirdly enough "it's illegal" does in fact work just fine in a lot of countries. The US legal system being a borderline p2w scam is probably part of the problem, likewise that American companies rarely feel like they have a shared social responsibility and proudly adopt a "I gotta get mine fuck you" attitude.

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

#388

Post by cimmanom »

hotdog97 wrote: post #58
newfoundglory wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you want people to do when they are job searching while pregnant? Are you just wishing you'd been told on her first day on the job?

Let me answer this with a counter-question. If you're pregnant and somehow hiding it really well, do you think it makes sense for you to job-hunting six weeks before you're due to give birth?

If you're un-/under-employed and need the money, of course.

If your old job doesn't provide halfway decent health benefits or paid parental leave, of course.

If your old job sucks your soul and makes you want to slit your wrists, of course.

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

#389

Post by awinder »

kuriho wrote: post #118
AchieveLife wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do companies you work at not hire employees for the long term?

They mainly hire people to replace others that quit/retired or to fill a new position created to support a team with a steadily growing workload. New hires are subject to a 3 month probation period during which both parties can end the contract at will. More than 80% of all positions are long term. I would hope that someone looking for a long term employment at a company would be honest and upfront with something lik…

Raising a newborn is not a vacation, that’s a highly insulting statement.

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

#390

Post by jbob2000 »

emptybits wrote: post #132
saagarjha wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a society, we've decided that being able to continue the population is more important than the fortunes of any particular startup. Maybe we could take this out of the hands of the startup and have society subsidize it?

Some societies do. I'm writing from Canada. Mother and/or father can share up to 35 weeks of paid leave under the national insurance program. This maxes out at, I think, approx $500 per week. It's not a lot. But it helps. Regarding societal values, this the same program that would normally pay you temporarily if you were laid off (not by choice). Normally you wouldn't be eligible to collect benefits if you willingly…

As an addendum, this leads to much less toxic work culture around pregenancies in Canada; it never feels like a “burden”, it’s just part of life. Combined with the fact that our tech salaries tend to be half that of the US, most companies are well protected from pregnancies because it a) doesn’t cost them much and b) they can hire more people to fill the gaps.
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