It just seems like common sense doesn’t it? No “leave”, paid or otherwise, should count toward seniority or one’s pension.
Why is that hard to understand?
If you don’t work during a given period and your company is kind enough to grant you leave (paid or unpaid) AND hold your job for you, that time SHOULD NOT count toward seniority within that Company nor be pensionable...because YOU DID NOT WORK.
In the FDNY, when one takes an extended “leave”, their seniority, as expected and is right, STOPS, then resumes when they begin working again.
If an engineer leaves a job for a year or two to rear children then comes back, it is RIGHT and JUST that all those workers hired at the same time, who did NOT take leaves, move ahead of that worker on the seniority list.
Then it also stands to reason that should such lost time should NOT count toward one’s pension either.
The recent Supreme Court ruling was at least a partial victory for this common sense approach the workplace, in that the high court overturned a lower court’s decision that said decades-old maternity leaves should count in determining pensions.
Four AT&T Corp. employees who took maternity leave between 1968 and 1976 had sued the company to get their leave time credited toward their pensions. Their pregnancies occurred before the 1979 Pregnancy Discrimination Act, which barred companies from treating pregnancy leaves differently from other disability leaves.
Not counting time NOT worked is not at all the same as “discriminating against pregnant women”!
Just another example of a well-intentioned law becoming “an ass.”
Why is that hard to understand?
If you don’t work during a given period and your company is kind enough to grant you leave (paid or unpaid) AND hold your job for you, that time SHOULD NOT count toward seniority within that Company nor be pensionable...because YOU DID NOT WORK.
In the FDNY, when one takes an extended “leave”, their seniority, as expected and is right, STOPS, then resumes when they begin working again.
If an engineer leaves a job for a year or two to rear children then comes back, it is RIGHT and JUST that all those workers hired at the same time, who did NOT take leaves, move ahead of that worker on the seniority list.
Then it also stands to reason that should such lost time should NOT count toward one’s pension either.
The recent Supreme Court ruling was at least a partial victory for this common sense approach the workplace, in that the high court overturned a lower court’s decision that said decades-old maternity leaves should count in determining pensions.
Four AT&T Corp. employees who took maternity leave between 1968 and 1976 had sued the company to get their leave time credited toward their pensions. Their pregnancies occurred before the 1979 Pregnancy Discrimination Act, which barred companies from treating pregnancy leaves differently from other disability leaves.
Not counting time NOT worked is not at all the same as “discriminating against pregnant women”!
Just another example of a well-intentioned law becoming “an ass.”
4 comments:
Clearly, you did not read the actual case. At the time these women took pregnancy leaves, AT&T employees who took medical leave could continue to accrue service credit for an unlimited amount of time. Women taking pregnancy leave, however, were limited to 30 days. So even if a woman had 60 days of sick and vacation leave stored up, she could only accrue service credit for 30 of those days. But if she, or any male employee, were out for the full 60 days for some other medical condition, those full 60 days would ultimately count towards service time. This case isn't about extended, unpaid leave. The leave at issue here was paid sick and vacation days.
So AT&T did allow paid leave to count towards seniority and pension. They just didn't treat pregnancy leave like any other medical leave. That's why this was an issue.
I DID read the case, anonymous.
"Four AT&T Corp. employees who took maternity leave between 1968 and 1976 had sued the company to get their leave time credited toward their pensions. Their pregnancies occurred before the 1979 Pregnancy Discrimination Act, which barred companies from treating pregnancy leaves differently from other disability leaves." The court ruled strictly on the grounds that leaves that occurred before the 1979 law came into effect could not be retroactively protected.
By the letter of tha law, that seems to be the correct decision.
My own point was that NO Leaves (paid or unpaid) should count toward retirment OR seniority.
I recognize that my view on that is NOT government's view on the matter.
It just seems to me tat the more logical, common-sense policy to adapt would be NO Leaves counting toward either one's pensionable time or one's seniority within that organization.
I think you missed MY point, which is that AT&T gets to set its own leave policy, not you, me, or the government. Side note: I totally disagree with your idea of not counting any leave time for purposes of seniority, etc. It seems like it would not promote good workplace morale if people couldn't take a week of vacation without losing that week of service from your pension.
The question here was whether AT&T's leave policy was discriminatory. If that same policy were in place today, there would be no question whatsoever: the policy would violate the law.
So the only question for the court was whether they would apply the anti-discrimination statute retroactively.
You wrote that NOT counting time not worked is not discrimination against women. But it absolutely is if you treat pregnancy leave differently than any other medical leave.
I think the SC ruled correctly, that the 1979 statute could NOT be enforced retroactively.
Personally, I DO see counting unworked time or "leaves" as pensionable and for seniority within that organization amounts to acruing benefits for unworked time, which is very close to "theft of services."
Now, given that sick leave and vacation leaves are pensioned and count toward seniority, then perhaps a max of 30 days of maternity leave should be treated the same way.
Still, one of the major reasons that women earn, on average, less than their male counterparts is that so many women leave the workforce for years at a time for "child-rearing."
There are radicals who claim that that is somehow "unfair", that that time SHOULD COUNT toward seniority (which most raises are predicated on).
NONSENSE!
You enter and leave the workforce voluntarily, of one's own accord.
Non-worked time, especially for extended periods cannot and SHOULD not count.
Post a Comment