HR Lawyer's Blog : San Antonio Employment Discrimination Lawyer & Attorney : McKinney Law Firm : Sexual Harassment, Wrongful Termination : Texas

 I am preparing for a trial next month in a case in which my client's employer fired her while she was out on maternity leave.  So I have been spending some time this week reading and exploring the web to find out what people are thinking and talking about right now with regards to pregnancy and work. 

Came across an interview with Sharon Lerner, the author of "The War on Moms."  She has an interesting take on the state of maternity leave laws in the U.S.  Her focus is not so much on the "choice" of continuing work or staying home after having a baby.  Instead she focuses on the practical context in which most women have to make that choice: economic pressure, social expectations, etc. and she reaches the conclusion that many. . . or even most women don't feel like they have much of a choice at all.  

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The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is looking at getting an extra $23 million dollars to help tackle the growing backlog of cases at the at the agency. 

According to the National Law Journal, the 2010 omnibus appropriations bill, passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on Dec. 10 and by the Senate on Dec. 13, would funnel those additional millions to the EEOC to help the agency get a handle on more than 70,000 unresolved discrimination complaints. 

The article reports that the resource-starved EEOC recently saw a 35% jump in its backlog, from 54,970 cases in 2007 to 73,951 last year. The agency also saw a record number of discrimination complaints in 2008 — 95,402 — which was also a nearly 20% increase from 79,896 in 2007. Nearly two-thirds involved racial or gender discrimination. 

Meanwhile, the agency has watched staffing levels shrink 25% in recent years under the last administration, from 2,850 in 2001 to 2,150 in 2008. Currently the agency is hiring 200 new investigators. 

The EEOC has always had a chronic problem with not being adequately funded.  While this new funding won't totally rectify the situation, the move should be welcomed by both employers and employees.  Regardless of outcome, it is in everyone's best interest for EEOC investigations to be resolved in as short a time frame as possible.  

Read the story here.

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Prior to Congress' recent amendments to the ADA, few if any lawyers would have given serious consideration to using the ADA as an avenue to sue for a pregnancy-related condition instead of bringing a traditional pregnancy discrimination claim pursuant to Title VII.  The fact that the EEOC has recently filed a lawsuit seeking to do just that speaks volumes about the how much stronger the ADA is perceived to be by practitioners following the recent amendments.  

The EEOC’s lawsuit charges that D.R. Horton (NYSE:DHI) refused to accommodate a female project manager in Kirkland, Wash., when it denied her additional unpaid leave time after her doctor placed her on bed rest for over seven months as a result of pregnancy-related complications. Although the company initially provided some leave time, it finally stated it was against company policy to provide the employee any more leave time, even if it was unpaid, and then fired her.

The EEOC, filing suit on the employee's behalf, has apparently determined that it can bring a stronger case under the new and improved ADA than it could by utilizing Title VII's protections against pregnancy discrimination.  This will be an interesting case to watch.  

According to the company's website, D.R. Horton is the biggest home builder in the United States and a Fortune 500 company with operations in 28 states and headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas.

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The University of Phoenix has agreed to pay a former employee $32,500 as part of a settlement of a discrimination claim that has been made public by the EEOC. The University settled the discrimination claim brought by Latrish Elaine Tarhini, who worked as enrollment counselor at the school’s Houston campus.

The EEOC and Tarhini claimed that University of Phoenix management said she would not be in line for a promotion because she made an earlier pregnancy discrimination charge against the Phoenix-based company and its parent, Apollo Group Inc. The EEOC filed suit against UOP in September 2008 in federal court, claiming the for-profit university violated retaliation statutes of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It violates federal law to discriminate against workers who previously filed discrimination claims against their employers.

The University of Phoenix is a subsidiary of Phoenix-based Apollo Group Inc. (Nasdaq: APOL). It has 397,000 students enrolled in its online and campus classes. The school has 200 campuses worldwide.
 

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