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For Immediate Release: May 18, 2009
Contact: Adrienne Ammerman or Mary Robbins, 202-588-5180
SUPREME COURT RULES AGAINST FEMALE WORKERS
A Bad Decision in AT&T Corp. v. Hulteen Perpetuates Pregnancy Discrimination Against Women in the Workplace
(Washington, DC) Ignoring the realities of the workplace and the intent of Congress, the Supreme Court today ruled against female workers in the case of AT&T Corp. v. Hulteen, thereby authorizing the employer, as Justice Ginsburg stated in a strong dissent, to pay them “for the rest of their lives, lower pension benefits than colleagues who worked for AT&T no longer than they did.” The National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) submitted an amicus brief in the case.
“This decision is an all-too-timely reminder of the importance of having on the Supreme Court justices who understand the real world impact of the law and the need to give life to Congress’s intent to eradicate discrimination,” stated Marcia D. Greenberger, Co-President of NWLC. “Once again, as in the Ledbetter case, the Court simply did not understand the barriers women faced and continue to face in the workplace. By authorizing AT&T to treat women differently today based on maternity leaves they took in the 1970s, the Court is allowing the perpetuation of pregnancy discrimination in damaging and unjustifiable ways.”
Noreen Hulteen is one of four women who sued AT&T after learning that their pension benefits were lower than they would have been if they had received credit for pregnancy leave that they took before the passage of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 (PDA). AT&T continued to deny them that credit when it set their pension benefits many years later. The Court found that the credits were determined as part of a “bona fide” seniority system, and thus could not be challenged under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
For the same reason, the Court held that AT&T’s decision could not be challenged under the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act that was enacted in January 2009 to overrule the Court’s decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber. In doing so, however, the Court ignored Justice Ginsburg’s recognition that AT&T’s seniority system was “infected by an overt differential” – the exclusion of pregnancy – and that Congress intended to bar disadvantageous treatment of pregnancy for all employment purposes, including pensions.
“This ruling erects barriers to the equal treatment of women in the workplace and gives a green light to employers to continue penalizing female employees who have borne children,” Greenberger stated. “It undermines Congress’s intent in passing the Pregnancy Discrimination Act to ensure that women would never again be adversely affected by their pregnancies, and denies Ms. Hulteen and her colleagues the equal compensation to which they are entitled.”
The AT&T Corp. v. Hulteen amicus brief is available here: http://www.nwlc.org/pdf/NWLC%20Hulteen%20Brief-Final.pdf.
For more information or to interview Marcia D. Greenberger, please contact Adrienne Ammerman or Mary Robbins at 202-588-5180.
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