Pregnancy Discrimination Essay

Facts of the Case: LaNisa Allen appealed the original judgment in favor of Totes/Isotoner Corporation on the issue of whether the Ohio Fair Employment Practices Act, as amended by the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, prohibits an employer from discriminating against a female employee because of or on the basis of lactation. Relevant law associated includes whether Allen established a prima facie case of “sex discrimination on the basis of pregnancy,” or whether she “was simply and plainly terminated as an employee at will for taking an unauthorized, extra break.” Allen’s original complaint was termination attributable to discrimination, based on pregnancy and related

This leave entitles employees to a 12 week unpaid leave within a 12 month period. It is 26 weeks for service men and women and their families. There are several components of this law that pertain to the number of employees, location of employees and the amount of time an employee has at their place of employment. Some employers may require you to use any accrued sick time, personal days or vacation time before the unpaid period

Currently, the United States is the only industrialized country without a statute requiring all employers to provide some kind of paid time off for its employees to care for a newborn or a sick loved one. Data gathered from 38 member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) support this claim. Figure 1 shows the member countries and the length of maternity leave provided to all employees.

of the original injury. This can be a problem when the employee takes FMLA leave "intermittently," to receive rehabilitative services or other treatments. It is essential that front line supervisors be made aware of the basic provisions of these laws to head off misunderstandings. Supervisor training is especially important since and employee is not required to make a specific request for FMLA leave in order to be protected. A uniform policy and supervisory training should help prepare an employer to handle these complex issues. The employer's ethical responsibility is to post notices of employee rights and responsibilities under the FMLA. Also include an FMLA policy in existing employee handbooks or otherwise distribute such a policy, and must notify employees of their rights and responsibilities under the Act when a request for FMLA leave has been made. Those in favor of a national standard for family leave have argued

You get the phone call in the middle of the night. Your son or daughter has been in a serious accident and is hospitalized in critical condition. After several day’s they come home from the hospital with several broken bones and require your around the clock attention for the next eight to twelve weeks. You just got over a serious medical condition yourself which you acquired while on vacation and do not have any vacation time or sick time to take off. Do you have to quit your job? Can your employer terminate you for taking time off to be with your child? What options do you have? What can your employer do for you? Well, the answer lies in the Family and Medical Leave Act.

In a precedent-setting decision in 2000, the state Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts upheld a superior court ruling in Carmichael Vs. Wynn & Wynn noting in the text that "discriminatory animus was a factor in the decision not to hire a pregnant woman."

When an employee has a baby they could be eligible for maternity leave and maternity pay. You have the right to maternity leave regardless of how long you've been in your job, how many hours you work, or how much you're paid. This is also the case for antenatal appointments. You are legally entitled to reasonable paid time off to attend antenatal appointments. Employees must take a minimum of 2 weeks off work (or 4 weeks if they are a factory worker).

There had to be a long fight to get the Pregnancy Discrimination Act passed in 1978 to ensure that having a baby was part of their benefits from work.

     The Family and Medical Leave Act was enacted by Congress on February 5, 1993, and it is public law 103-3. This law allows for a person to leave work in certain situations without losing his/her job. An eligible employees must have worked for the employer for at least 12 months and at least completed 1250 hours of service. An employee is able to leave work for up to 12 weeks for any of the following reasons: the employee expects a baby in his/her immediate family, the employee expects an adopted child in his/her immediate family, the employee has to take care of an ill family member which includes spouse, parent or his/her own children, and/or the employee has a serious medical

-Employees who have the following reason should get up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave: own serious illness, birth and adoption, and take care of a seriously ill child, spouse, and parent. (We guarantee your position with no loss of benefits at the end of the leave)

The Family and Medical Aid Act (FLMA), of 1993, provides for 12 weeks of unpaid, job protected leave for certain specified events (8). Whilst one could refer to this as maternity or paternity leave if taken because of a pregnancy, this would not be strictly true. Where maternity and paternity leave are offered around the

Within the Civil Right act was a section entitled Title VII which was created specifically to deal with matters of employment. Title VII’s objective is to prevent discrimination based upon a person’s color, national origin, gender, and religion in regards to all aspects of employment. This protection begins with the initial stages of hiring and training employees and extends up to promotions and dismissals of an employees. If a person belonged to one of the groups outlined by Title VII they became classified as a member of a protected class. (Bohlander and Snell, 101) With the establishment of sex as a protected class the foundation of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act had been laid but it would take fourteen years before pregnancy itself would become protected.

Congress amended Title VII in 1978 by passing the Pregnancy Discrimination Act and made it clear that discrimination based on pregnancy is unlawful sex discrimination. This legislation reversed the Supreme Court's Gilbert decision in 1976. Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1991 which overruled several Supreme Court decisions rendered in the 1980s that had made it more difficult for plaintiffs to prevail in their employment discrimination suits and to recover fees and costs when they won their lawsuits (www.eeoc.gov). The amendment stated that parties can request jury trials and those successful plaintiffs can recover compensatory and punitive damages in employment discrimination cases. This amendment has

Still, many people believe that women should not be given this right. They argue that the fetus growing inside her also has rights and that they should be protected.

The change in policy that allows women and men to bring their newborn children to work with them is, in a sense, just one more change in our country norms and values. At one point leaving your child with a baby sitter or at a daycare center all day was considered being a bad parent, meaning it was the norm to stay home and take care of your child yourself. Then, as divorce rates went up and more women were forced to raise their children on their own, that changed and it became the norm for women to go back to work after a set time for maternity leave. This also made sending you child to a daycare center or leaving them with a babysitter the norm since you couldn’t be there to take care of your child. With women being allowed to bring their babies into work with them, that is again changing the norms of society, specifically those having to do with the care of children. Women used to be given a hard time when they brought their children into work with them, even if it was only for a matter of minutes. Now many of them are allowed to bring their children in for a whole day, every day. This is enabling women to care for their own children and raise them in their own way with their own values, instead of entrusting those important responsibilities to someone else. Mothers are also forming a closer bond with their children in an important time in a child’s development. This will lead to a stronger bond later