Employment

When I saw the headlines recently about Kate Middleton being rushed to the hospital for treatment of hyperemesis gravidarum, a severe pregnancy-related complication, I immediately thought of my mother.

When I was three and my mom was pregnant with my brother, she was very sick. I was too young to really understand it, but I did know that she was throwing up nonstop and that every day a woman came to give her an I.V. What she was suffering from was more than morning sickness: it was hyperemesis. The I.V. my mother got prevented her from becoming too dehydrated or malnourished while her body literally could not keep down any food, and she was on bedrest for months.

Although we didn’t have the same resources available to Kate Middleton, whose hyperemesis is currently making international news, my mother was still luckier than many women who are diagnosed with this condition. She worked at a medical school library, and her supervisors accommodated her need for leave and gave her a reduced schedule once she was able to return to work. Women like Saonarah Jeudy have not been so lucky.

Jeudy was working as a prison guard when she became pregnant. Not only did she suffer from hyperemesis, she also had painful fibroid tumors. Read more »

Today the Supreme Court is hearing argument in Genesis HealthCare Corp. v. Symczyk. In this case, the plaintiff, Laura Symczyk, alleges that her nursing home employer violated the Fair Labor Standards Act by deducting a 30-minute lunch break from her wages and the wages of her coworkers, regardless of whether they worked during their scheduled breaks.

The question before the Court is whether an employer’s offer of settlement to the named plaintiff in a class action alleging company-wide violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) can end the case, when the employer makes the settlement offer before any of the named plaintiff’s coworkers have a meaningful opportunity to join the case. If the Court’s answer to this question is yes, then employers will have the power to shut down class actions challenging wage and hour violations before they begin, leaving other affected employees without the chance to have their claims heard.

Such a holding would undermine the intent of the FLSA which was to protect vulnerable workers from exploitation and abuse. When Congress passed this landmark legislation in 1938 it provided for “collective actions” through which groups of workers could band together to enforce their rights. Read more »

In what some may see as a modern version of “David and Goliath,” the women of Wal-Mart have fought for over a decade to challenge the discriminatory pay and promotion practices of the mega-retailer, which is located in all 50 states and Puerto Rico and is the largest private employer in the U.S. Last year, adding insult to alleged injury, the Supreme Court denied class certification in Wal-Mart v. Dukes, 131 S. Ct. 2541 (2011) – finding that the plaintiffs failed to satisfy the “commonality” requirement for class actions when they failed to provide proof that “[Wal-Mart] operate[d] under a general policy of discrimination.” The decision dealt a strong blow to those who would seek to become modern-day “Davids” – leading NWLC’s Co-President, Marcia Greenberger, to issue the following statement:

"Today’s ruling undermines the very purposes of the class action mechanism and is tantamount to closing the courthouse door on millions of women who cannot vindicate their rights one person at a time. The women of Wal-Mart — and women everywhere — will now face a far steeper road to challenge and correct pay and other forms of discrimination in the workplace."

The plaintiffs subsequently limited the size of their class by region – new class actions were filed in California and Texas, and complaints were filed with the EEOC in 48 states – and cut out women who held certain positions in response to the Supreme Court decision. Read more »

The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act was introduced in the Senate last week. To help you learn more about the legislation and why it’s critically important to pregnant workers, here are five fast facts about pregnancy and the workplace.

1) Neither the Pregnancy Discrimination Act nor the Americans with Disabilities Act explicitly require employers to provide minor workplace accommodations if pregnant employees need them.

While the Pregnancy Discrimination Act extends Title VII employment discrimination protections to pregnant employees, all too often courts have held that it does not protect women who need minor adjustments on the job during pregnancy, such as being permitted to carry a water bottle, take more frequent bathroom breaks, or get a temporary reprieve from heavy lifting — unless the pregnant woman can point to someone else doing exactly the same work who needed and received exactly the same job adjustments but who wasn't pregnant. It will often be impossible to find this nonpregnant identical twin. The Americans with Disabilities Act also doesn't apply, because pregnancy itself is not a disability (although pregnancy complications, like preeclampsia or gestational diabetes, can be).

2) The United States does not have a federal law requiring paid medical or parental leave.

Although the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) provides twelve weeks of unpaid leave during which your employer, if large enough to be covered by the law, will save your job, most employers don't provide paid medical or family leave, and very few workers in low-wage jobs have access to more than a few days of paid leave for medical needs. Read more »

Heather got fired from Wal-Mart for carrying a water bottle.

Natasha was forced onto unpaid leave and then fired because her district manager at Rent-A-Center found out she needed help with occasional heavy lifting on the sales floor.

Sarah* lost her job at a fast food restaurant for taking bathroom and water breaks.

What do all of these women have in common? They were all pregnant.

All they needed were minor adjustments to continue safely working during pregnancy.  They didn’t get these adjustments.  And they all lost their jobs because of it.

The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act would put an end to this absurdity. Senators Bob Casey and Jeanne Shaheen will introduce the bill in the U.S. Senate today. Representative Jerrold Nadler introduced the PWFA in the U.S. House of Representatives in May, and it now has more than 100 co-sponsors. Public health organizations, business organizations, women’s organizations, worker organizations, and religious groups have lined up in support as well.

The PWFA would make it illegal to fire a pregnant employee who requests a reasonable accommodation – such as a water break, bathroom break, or modification of a lifting requirement. Pregnant workers would have the same rights to temporary accommodations on the job that are available to workers with disabilities.

Why do we need this bill? Stories like the ones above sound like they are from the Dark Ages, right? Before the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 made it illegal to discriminate against pregnant workers, women were expected to quit their jobs when they became pregnant. Back then, pregnancy was widely regarded as a disabling condition. Read more »

Zoe Saldana, the star of basically every movie I love (including Center Stage … so sue me. I’m a sucker for a story of dedication to the arts, cutting edge ballet-rock-operas and really handsome male ballerinas) recently sat down and spoke with Amanda de Cadenet about women in Hollywood and entertainment. She made some really great points that apply to women in the workplace across a number of fields.

Saldana makes an excellent point: men and women aren’t equal in the movie/film industry – or in most workplaces nationwide. Read more »

Labor Day provided a moment to take stock of how women are doing in today’s economy. For many, it’s not a pretty picture.

This might seem surprising given that during the recovery many of the occupations that have shown the most rapid growth are occupations where women hold the majority of jobs. Unfortunately, these occupations are also marked by low wages.  In fact, low-wage jobs have grown almost three times faster than middle and high-wage jobs during the recovery.

The top ten fastest-growing occupations include: retail salesperson; restaurant servers; personal and home care aides; office clerks and customer service representatives—jobs where women make up the majority of all workers. All of these are occupations that pay low wages.

In fact, there are 2.4 women for every 1 man working in occupations with median earnings for full-time work below the federal poverty threshold for a family of four. Likewise, women make up 2 out of 3 minimum wage workers. Often women’s work is synonymous with low-wage work. Read more »

In honor of Labor Day, here’s a snapshot of how working women are faring in today’s economy, by the numbers.

• Percentage of college graduates earning bachelor’s degrees who are women: 57.
• Percentage of students earning master’s degrees who are women: 60.
• Years of college that a man must attend, on average, to earn approximately the same as a woman with a four-year degree: 2.
• The typical number of cents paid to a full-time, year-round woman worker for every dollar paid to her male counterpart: 77.
• The typical number of cents paid to an African-American full-time, year-round woman worker for every dollar paid to a white, non-Hispanic man: 62.
• The typical number of cents paid to a Latina full-time, year-round woman worker for every dollar paid to a white, non-Hispanic man: 54.

It’s officially back-to-school season and the shopping is in full swing. Families around the country are out buying school supplies, new clothes, or maybe picking up a few things for that last summer project they haven’t quite finished yet.

But this August, you may have noticed a difference at your local stores – more men staffing the cash register, the customer service desk, or helping you search the aisles for that elusive item on your shopping list.

That’s because since the recovery began in June 2009, men have gained 395,600 jobs in retail – almost 2.5 times the number of jobs that women have lost (163,400) in the same period.

$7.25 an hour. Imagine feeding a family on that. That’s the magic trick low-wage working women – who make up 2/3 of those earning minimum wages or less – have to perform on a daily basis.

As Kate Gallagher Robbins pointed out yesterday, an hourly wage of $7.25 leaves a person working full time year round with just $14,500—or $3000 below the poverty line for a mom with two kids.

But where does that $7.25 an hour leave workers who can’t get a full-time job? Involuntary part-time work is a huge problem for low-wage workers in today’s labor market. BLS data from 2011 (PDF) show that 8.5 million people were in part-time work for economic reasons like slack work, only being able to find a part-time job or seasonal work.

Instead of multiplying $7.25 by 40 hours a week, for these workers the math looks more like $7.25 x 20 or 25 hours (and in many cases, even fewer hours). In other words, workers earning minimum wages in involuntary part-time jobs are hit much harder by the painfully low minimum wage. Read more »