Supreme Court Rules Against Working Women (Again)

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber, and just yesterday, AT&T Corp. v. Hulteen, directly undermines efforts to eradicate the persistent discrimination that still plague women in the workplace. In the Hulteen case, the Supreme Court rejected (by a 7-2 vote) the arguments of four female AT&T workers and retirees who argued that the Company’s pension plan should give women who took pregnancy leave before the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA) was passed in 1978 the same credit for time out of work that employees with other types of disabilities received from the Company. By so voting, the Supreme Court makes it legal for AT&T to discriminate against female employees who took maternity leave before the PDA was enacted and allows the Company to provide lower pension benefits to this group of women compared to peers who worked no longer.

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