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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsEvery pro-life wing nut needs to read this
Very shameful -- Of course no unions here to help pregnant employees.
We need to change this toothless law to aid pregnant women on the job. And I'm sure no Republican cares one whit about this.
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Pregnancy Discrimination in Corporate America
The Toll of Miscarrying at Work
MEMPHIS If you are a Verizon customer on the East Coast, odds are good that your cellphone or tablet arrived by way of a beige, windowless warehouse near Tennessees border with Mississippi.
Inside, hundreds of workers, many of them women, lift and drag boxes weighing up to 45 pounds, filled with iPhones and other gadgets. There is no air-conditioning on the floor of the warehouse, which is owned and operated by a contractor. Temperatures there can rise past 100 degrees. Workers often faint, according to interviews with 20 current and former employees.
One evening in January 2014, after eight hours of lifting, Erica Hayes ran to the bathroom. Blood drenched her jeans.
She was 23 and in the second trimester of her first pregnancy. She had spent much of the week hoisting the warehouses largest boxes from one conveyor belt to the next. Ever since she learned she was pregnant, she had been begging her supervisor to let her work with lighter boxes, she said in an interview. She said her boss repeatedly said no.
She fainted on her way out of the bathroom that day. The baby growing inside of her, the one she had secretly hoped was a girl, was gone.
It was the worst thing I have ever experienced in my life, Ms. Hayes said.
Three other women in the warehouse also had miscarriages in 2014, when it was owned by a contractor called New Breed Logistics. Later that year, a larger company, XPO Logistics, bought New Breed and the warehouse. The problems continued. Another woman miscarried there this summer. Then, in August, Ceeadria Walker did, too.
The women had all asked for light duty. Three said they brought in doctors notes recommending less taxing workloads and shorter shifts. They said supervisors disregarded the letters.
Pregnancy discrimination is widespread in corporate America. Some employers deny expecting mothers promotions or pay raises; others fire them before they can take maternity leave. But for women who work in physically demanding jobs, pregnancy discrimination often can come with even higher stakes.
(snip)
But refusing to accommodate pregnant women is often completely legal. Under federal law, companies dont necessarily have to adjust pregnant womens jobs, even when lighter work is available and their doctors send letters urging a reprieve.
The Pregnancy Discrimination Act is the only federal law aimed at protecting expecting mothers at work. It is four paragraphs long and 40 years old. It says that a company has to accommodate pregnant workers requests only if it is already doing so for other employees who are similar in their ability or inability to work.
That means that companies that do not give anyone a break have no obligation to do so for pregnant women. Employees say that is how the warehouses current owner, XPO Logistics, operates.
More:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/21/business/pregnancy-discrimination-miscarriages.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
TEB
(12,842 posts)marble falls
(57,081 posts)Hermit-The-Prog
(33,343 posts)That company uses the southern plantation style of management -- work 'em to death and buy a new one.
GOP has been working toward eliminating employee power for decades. GOPers worship their saint Ronnie for busting unions. The only ones voting for GOP in power should be anti-union oligarchs. It makes no sense, to me, for anyone who works for a living to vote for parasites that want to see them dead.
WhiteTara
(29,713 posts)Zing Zing Zingbah
(6,496 posts)You know it would be if men could get pregnant. Even good pregnancies are hell to go through. I wish men could experience them so they would really know.
uponit7771
(90,336 posts)rampartc
(5,407 posts)she made syre i was as miserable as she was.
Zing Zing Zingbah
(6,496 posts)They seem incapable of understanding what others feel. They only get it when it is something they can go through themselves. This is why anything that is an women's issue is not understood and not important to them. I think if those GOP men could experience pregnancy that would probably be the greatest hardship of their lives.
rampartc
(5,407 posts)abortion would be a sacrament.
ck4829
(35,076 posts)It's outrage against the radical idea that a lower class person / woman has agency over her own body.