Pregnancy Discrimination in Employment Pregnancy discrimination in employment has been a growing and prevalent issue in the United States. Until the 20th century, women’s rights cases in the United States courts were unheard of, let alone pregnancy cases. The 1974 case Geduldig v. Aiello contrasts with the recent 2015 case Young v. United States Parcel Service, Inc. on how the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 changed how pregnant women are treated in the work force. Without the addition of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, pregnant women would not be protected from the discrimination and deficits they face due to their temporarily disabled condition. However, as seen with the more recent …show more content…
United Parcel Service, Inc., involved the Pregnancy Discrimination Act and whether or not the unpaid leave of absence of Peggy Young, a UPS delivery driver, violated this act. Young sued the United Parcel Service for pregnancy discrimination, who denied the claims and argued that she was treated no different than her peers. The U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed the district court’s dismissal of Young’s claim. The Supreme Court justices agreed with a 6-3 decision that the Pregnancy Discrimination Act does not require an employer to provide the same work accommodations to an employee with pregnancy-related work limitations as to employees with similar work limitations, unrelated to pregnancy …show more content…
United States Parcel Service, Inc. case shows direct civil disobedience to the Pregnancy Discrimination Act by the United States Parcel Service. Instead of giving Young - pregnant at the time - a modified task, as they had repeatedly done for other temporarily disabled employees, the UPS did not respect her lifting restriction and told her she cannot work in her condition. “The Act's second clause says that employers must treat ‘women affected by pregnancy . . . the same for all employment-related purposes . . . as other persons not so affected but similar in their ability or inability to work’” (Justia). Young’s argument that the UPS violated the Pregnancy Discrimination Act was supported with facts pointing to other employees whose temporary disabilities, even though not related to pregnancy, were accommodated to fit their physical needs. Several of these workers had similar working restrictions to Young, which were indeed addressed by the UPS and accommodated so as not to disrupt the workflow of the employee (Justia). The Supreme Court’s decision to extend temporary disability benefits to all temporarily disabled workers except pregnant women is discriminatory and has set yet another immoral fundamental in United States legal history. Future corporate companies who want an escape route from compensating their pregnant workers will be able to tap into this case as a source to support a potential argument against their respective pregnant
Moran, John Jude. "Disability Discrimination." Employment Law: New Challenges in the Business Environment. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2014. 413-14. Print.
Schools must provide equal access to school for pregnant and parenting students and treat pregnancy like any other interim disability. Schools also must provide equal access to extracurricular activities for pregnant and parenting students. This means that a school may not a school cannot require a doctor’s note for a pregnant student to participate in activities unless the school requires a doctor’s note from all students who have conditions that require medical care. School must excuse absences due to pregnancy or childbirth for as long as the the students doctor believes is medically necessary. School must also ensure that any separate programs or schools for pregnant and parenting students are spontaneous and offer opportunities equal to those offered for non-pregnant students. Title IX protects every person, boys and girls, men and women, and students and employees from sexual
The movement continues to make great strides towards the empowerment and self determination ("Disability rights movement," 2005, p. 3). On the other hand, it has not completely broken down barriers that continue to create the dynamics of oppression among such individuals. For instance, WIOA can be harmful to individuals with disabilities because there are still societal prejudices and biases associated with the stereotypical portrayal of people with disabilities and WIOA has played a role in it. For example, WIOA networks with employers to hire individual’s with disabilities and place them in conventional settings, where they work with others who have disabilities, for example, Walgreen’s and in fact, these participating organizations have also increased their pay. In my opinion, individual’s with disabilities should be able to work with individuals who are not disabled, as well. Furthermore, pay for those individuals who are still considered to be in “sheltered” work programs have not received an increase in pay. Additionally, according to my studies, in 2012, less than 30 percent of Florida’s civilians with disabilities between age 18-64 living in the community were employed. There is a greater priority focused on young people who are disabled. This is an additional issue in my opinion which can be considered discrimination, because, the focus leaves out middle aged individuals as well as,
"Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is the single most important piece of legislation that has helped to shape and define employment law rights in this country (Bennett-Alexander & Hartman, 2001)". Title VII prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, age, gender, disability, religion and national origin. However, it was racial discrimination that was the moving force of the law that created a whirlwind of a variety of discriminations to be amended into Title VII. Title VII was a striving section of legislation, an effort which had never been tried which made the passage of the law an extremely uneasy task. This paper will discuss the evolution of Title VII as well as the impact Title VII has had in the workforce.
Women working in the Texas state government suffer wage inequality because all women carry the expectation that they will leave work to have a baby. Women determine whether they will or will not have kids, but even though their colleagues do plan on having kids or are pregnant, they all have the same designated pay. When hiring women employers have a doubt that they will stay the entire time and that it will be a permanent job so the employer does not feel a need to give them an equal pay compared to a man doing the same job.
Most afflicted adults were stored away in the back rooms of houses, and children with mental disabilities were given up into adoption or aborted. In addition, Hahn reiterates that legislative polices have pronounced people with disabilities as unfit for society, unable to be hired to do work. People with disabilities are in no way “unemployed” because they can not do work. Hahn’s article, “Disability and the Urban Environment: A Perspective on Los Angeles,” which was published in 1986 is outdated, and the thoughts should be reconsidered. In the Disability and Discrimination Act of 1995 and 2005, it lays out policies that ban employers from discriminating against disabled people, when hiring (The Disability and Discrimination Act). It aims to ensure equal opportunity and a level of fairness in the workplace. Since 1986, the social structure of society has adapted and evolved over time. Nondisabled people are more liberal, and they are accepting; however, there still remains a level of discrimination. Even though they are more aware of the inequalities that exist today, people look down on the disabled population. As a society we need to make drastic improvements, in terms of attitudes. Disability should be viewed in a positive light: instead of a burden, disabled people should be part of the community. Disabled people should not have to deal with the social stigma of being different; it is part of what makes them stronger and more will
Female inequality in workplace is one of the harmful aspect that is afflicting the entire
Mother’s health. Supporters of abortions rejoiced and felt they had won. Shortly after the case,
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is one of the most significant laws in American History. Before the ADA was passed, employers were able to deny employment to a disabled worker, simply because he or she was disabled. With no other reason other than the person's physical disability, they were turned away or released from a job. The ADA gives civil rights protections to individuals with disabilities similar to those provided to individuals on the basis of race, color, sex, national origin, age, and religion. The act guarantees equal opportunity for individuals with disabilities in public accommodations, employment, transportation, State and local government services, and telecommunications. The ADA not only opened the door for millions of Americans to get back into the workplace, it paved the road for new facilities in the workplace, new training programs, and created jobs designed for a disabled society (Frierson, 1990). This paper will discuss disabilities covered by the ADA, reasonable accommodations employers must take to accommodate individuals with disabilities, and the actions employers can take when considering applicants who have disabilities.
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and various other federal and state laws prohibit intentional discrimination based on ancestry or ethnicity. Some employers practice blatant forms of minority discrimination by paying lower salaries and other compensation to blacks and Hispanics. Others engage in quota systems by denying promotions and jobs to individuals on the basis of race or color. Federal laws prohibit employers of 15 or more employees from discriminating on the basis of race or color. Virtually all states have even stronger anti-discrimination laws directed to fighting job-related race and minority discrimination. In some states, companies with fewer than eight employees can be found guilty of discrimination.
Although abortion has been legal for more than 30 years, the Roe vs. Wade decision is currently in jeopardy of being overturned by the Bush administration. Weddington divulged her personal fears about the decision being overturned by the court on any grounds. She stated that the damage will be long lasting and many women will suffer. Currently, there is a big effort by those opposed to abortion to give the fetus rights. Recent Bush administration regulations want to declare that a fetus is a child under the government's State Children's Health Insurance Program. This change would refute one of Weddington's arguments in Roe vs. Wade that the government has never treated the fetus as a person.
Since the time women were eligible to be an employee of a workplace, they have become victims of discrimination. Discrimination is the practice of treating a person or group of people differently from other people (Webster, 2013). Thousands of women have suffered from discrimination in workplaces because they are pregnant, disabled, or of the opposite sex. It is crazy to think that someone would fire a woman because she became pregnant and needed to have some work adjustments ("Pregnancy and parenting,"). A woman goes through a lot to give birth to children, and men will never understand the complications a mother encounters during the pregnancy. Sadly, males think that pregnant women don’t make a working hand, which is totally wrong.
The number of women in the civilian labor force jumped from 23 million in the
Although some of the worst employment discrimination was eliminated by the Civil Rights Act in 1964, many women continue to undergo unfair and unlawful discrimination in the workplace. Even though women have come a long way, they are still being discriminated against in certain fields of work. High-end jobs, most commonly large companies and medical fields, continue to discriminate against women even though they have the same job qualifications as men.
This legislation would ensure clarity for employers, employees, and courts seeking to understand the rights of pregnant workers. Additionally, employers benefit when their pregnant workers continue in their jobs, not only from employee retention, but improved morale, increased productivity and reduced training costs (“Pregnancy Discrimination”).