NY Times: Miscarrying at Work - The Physical Toll of Pregnancy Discrimination

[Bozo the kKklown]

Article from a month ago in the NY Times about pregnancy discrimination in the workplace. And another argument for why we need more workers rights because this is what happens in Amazon warehouses, etc

 

This is what bad capitalism looks like and American capitalism is Pookie on New Jack City-status.

 

 

Quote

It was the fall of 2013, and Erica Hayes was convinced that she was having a girl. She daydreamed about the clothes she would buy and made a list of favorite names. Her friend was pregnant with a boy, and they talked about raising their children together.

 

At first, Ms. Hayes was processing individual shipments to Verizon customers — one phone, one charger, onto the next. Then, a crush of holiday orders hit the warehouse in December. She said that her boss began dispatching her to the area of the warehouse that handled bulk shipments, often destined for Verizon stores, where the warehouse was struggling to keep up. She often spent up to 12 hours a day lifting huge boxes, some with 20 iPads and 20 accessories.

 

She said she could have handled paperwork or stayed in the section of the warehouse devoted to small shipments. But she said her supervisor kept ordering her to work with the largest boxes. Ms. Hayes’s mother said that her daughter talked to her about the rejected requests at the time.

 

Ms. Hayes said she began to bleed regularly at work. She sometimes left early to go to the hospital. Each time, she said, her supervisor wrote her up. As the demerits accumulated, she stopped leaving. Instead, she bled through four maxi pads a day.

 

“My job was on the line,” she said. At the end of a long shift in January 2014, she felt blood gushing into her jeans.

 

A co-worker fetched her a black peacoat to wrap around her waist to cover the spreading stain. Another grabbed plastic bags to line the leather driver’s seat of her 2003 Hyundai. Ms. Hayes fainted before she could get to the car. An ambulance took her to the hospital.

 

A couple of weeks later, she said, her supervisor handed her a $300 invoice for the cost of the ambulance ride. (Ms. Hayes, who still works at the warehouse and is hoping for a promotion, said she never paid the bill.)

 

 

 

Link for the rest of the article:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/21/business/pregnancy-discrimination-miscarriages.html

[Dont Taze Me Bro]

Disgusting and horrible.  

[Kosher Ham]

You are asking for privilege. Story reads like equality to me. 

[Destino]

Disgusting.  This is a threat to a central pillar of life and our society and it must be addressed.  Our society increasingly places economic strain on families and birth rates are declining.  It’s becoming increasingly difficult to have a family, and especially difficult on mothers who usually carry the greatest burdens in all things relating to children.  

[TradeTheBeal!]

A couple of points...

 

I’ve said this many times but it bears repeating.  The idea that I, as a small business owner, am the primary supervisor and administrator of health care for my employees is absolutely ridiculous.  I need to manage inventory, maintain a motivated workforce and forecast budgets/marketing.  To say that I am ill-equipped to make the best medical decisions for my staff is a massive understatement.  The entire system is ludicrous and a massive drag on the economy both locally and nationwide.

 

If a woman is working a high-labor job and intends to start a family, it would be pragmatic and responsible to make an adjustment in your livelihood.  Just showing up to Verizon one day and letting them know that they need to make a change for you is a poor plan.  Why?!?  Because why should Verizon care?  They’ve got a business to run.  Does the health care plan not cover birth control?  This ain’t Hobby Lobby.

 

Ive met many, many women who were extremely fitness-focused and active through their pregnancies and miscarriages occur in a significant percentage of pregnancies.  Tough to pin this on the job.

 

This article/OP comments feels kinda like exploiting workplace miscarriages as a means to attack a market based economy on a philosophical level.  Not a very good look, imo.

 

#hottakes

[Bozo the kKklown]

9 minutes ago, TryTheBeal! said:

Just showing up to Verizon one day and letting them know that they need to make a change for you is a poor plan.  Why?!?  Because why should Verizon care?

And that is the problem with American capitalism.

 

I also encourage you all to read more of the article. What I cited was not the worst story.

[Springfield]

Yeah, miscarriages are real sad.

[Why am I Mr. Pink?]

I actually have 2 clients that are relevant here.

 

1 works for Amazon. Despite repeated efforts, it is impossible to get HR to acknowledge letters, respond or provide a lost wage letter. I couldnt believe it. You would think Amazon would have this amazing computerized system and great corporate structure.

 

I talked with the insurance adjuster on the case and once she heard Amazon she sd "oh no, youre never going to a letter or any help from them. They are the worst.". I am going to ave to subpoena a corporate rep at this point.

 

Amazon has the worst HR I have ever seen. I thought they would have the best.

 

2 I have a client who had a miscarriage recently. She went to hospital but had work the next night (night shift at a hospital). She had to go bc she had missed a good bit of time because of her car accident (heavy heavy hit). She laid down in the lounge while they were on stand by, apparently you can watch tv or lounge during this time. She accidently fell asleep.Her shift manager saw her sleeping and wrote her up. When she told manger about miscarriage, manager didnt care and she was placed on non-paid admin leave. 

 

She went and found a better paying job.

 

edit - Verizon not Amazon ... sorry. Story 1 has no relevance here.

 

edit edit - read the article.Tough call. These woman could probably have qualified for FMLA but while that would secure their job they wouldnt get paid while off.

 

If your job requires you to lift more than 15 lbs and you cant do that bc you are pregnant and having complications ... I hope no one expects the company to pay you while you are off for months and months until you have the baby.

 

I think if a company can accomodate light duty, they should. if they cant, and you cant work ...

[Renegade7]

Let's be clear: Corporate America can and should do more to protect and encourage families.  It's absolutely a ripple effect that will come back to companies anyway.

 

@Destino nailed why we are going about the whole immigration thing wrong, the birthrate in this country is hovering around replacement rate.  Unless we want a demographic disaster like what's going to happen in countries like Russia, Japan, and even China, we need to make having families more hospitable to working adults.

 

Idea:  what if instead of parents paying for childcare and claiming it on taxes their employer pays for childcare and claims it on their taxes instead?  Could easily see a dramatic shift in workplace and econonic participation, especially among those that can barely afford childcare.

[Destino]

17 minutes ago, TryTheBeal! said:

A couple of points...

 

I’ve said this many times but it bears repeating.  The idea that I, as a small business owner, am the primary supervisor and administrator of health care for my employees is absolutely ridiculous.  I need to manage inventory, maintain a motivated workforce and forecast budgets/marketing.  To say that I am ill-equipped to make the best medical decisions for my staff is a massive understatement.  The entire system is ludicrous and a massive drag on the economy both locally and nationwide.

 

If a woman is working a high-labor job and intends to start a family, it would be pragmatic and responsible to make an adjustment in your livelihood.  Just showing up to Verizon one day and letting them know that they need to make a change for you is a poor plan.  Why?!?  Because why should Verizon care?  They’ve got a business to run.  Does the health care plan not cover birth control?  This ain’t Hobby Lobby.

 

Ive met many, many women who were extremely fitness-focused and active through their pregnancies and miscarriages occur in a significant percentage of pregnancies.  Tough to pin this on the job.

 

This article/OP comments feels kinda like exploiting workplace miscarriages as a means to attack a market based economy on a philosophical level.  Not a very good look, imo.

 

#hottakes

 

This is a bull**** argument because this all extends well beyond physical strain and miscarriages.  By your logic why should you, the sacred employer, care that a new born needs some time with it's parents?  Why should you be forced to accommodate any parenting concern, like increased time off to deal with family related issues?  The answer is because you employ humans and one of the fundamental aspects of being human is having children.  This remains undeniably true despite some choosing not to.   

 

All you've done here is advise people not to have children if they wish to remain employed and imagine it perfectly reasonable.  I have a family and from my perspective you sound like a fascist. 

[Bozo the kKklown]

6 minutes ago, Why am I Mr. Pink? said:

edit - Verizon not Amazon ... sorry. Story 1 has no relevance here.

Your story is very relevant because it more than likely happens at Amazon too.

 

People are afraid to leave their stations at Amazon warehouses to even use the bathroom.

 

 

The article is about pregnant women in warehouses, but the all-encompassing issue is workers rights. We need to start demanding more because these corporations will take it away with zero concern.

[Why am I Mr. Pink?]

1 minute ago, Destino said:

 

 

All you've done here is advise people not to have children if they wish to remain employed and imagine it perfectly reasonable.  I have a family and from my perspective you sound like a fascist. 

 

All you've done here is advise people not to have children if they wish to remain employed in a job field not suitable for pregnant women and imagine it perfectly reasonable. 

 

I dont necessarily agree with Beal but I added the bolded part to more closely reflect what he was perhaps trying to say.

[Renegade7]

It's funny how when Corporate America owes you something, its letters that needs be mailed and processing that needs to be done, blahdy, blahdy, blah.  When it's something you owe them, you might as well be at gunpoint.  This is why you need laws to force capitalism to look out for people's best interests and their rights, history shows if it can do the bare minimum with highest profit margin, it will.  Still better then socialism.

[TradeTheBeal!]

11 minutes ago, Destino said:

 

This is a bull**** argument because this all extends well beyond physical strain and miscarriages.  By your logic why should you, the sacred employer, care that a new born needs some time with it's parents?  Why should you be forced to accommodate any parenting concern, like increased time off to deal with family related issues?  The answer is because you employ humans and one of the fundamental aspects of being human is having children.  This remains undeniably true despite some choosing not to.   

 

All you've done here is advise people not to have children if they wish to remain employed and imagine it perfectly reasonable.  I have a family and from my perspective you sound like a fascist. 

 

Oh lord...here we go.

 

On a personal and professional level, I do care.  Our company has cultivated a reputation for being family-friendly and very accommodating for our employees regarding family issues.  But understand, that’s not because we’re angelic or such.  It’s because we need to be that to attract and keep good people.  This also leads to broad leniency to our employees without children/families because we lean on them so hard to help us cover for our folks with newborns/sick kids/etc...because, in all honesty, they are more productive.  But that’s really a different topic, I suppose.

 

Anyhoo, the broad point that capitalism/corporate America is causing miscarriages and driving down the birth rate doesn’t really work for me and I suspect that it would be impossible to prove any correlation or causation.  For obvious reasons...

 

Medicare for all...I’m down.

Paid maternity/paternity leave...I’m also down.

Broad, vague legislation aimed at corporate America designed to decrease miscarriages and increase birth rate?!?  How is that supposed to work?

 

And spare me the false outrage/fascist stuff.  You know me better than that.

 

 

[Dont Taze Me Bro]

23 minutes ago, TryTheBeal! said:

A couple of points...

 

I’ve said this many times but it bears repeating.  The idea that I, as a small business owner, am the primary supervisor and administrator of health care for my employees is absolutely ridiculous.  I need to manage inventory, maintain a motivated workforce and forecast budgets/marketing.  To say that I am ill-equipped to make the best medical decisions for my staff is a massive understatement.  The entire system is ludicrous and a massive drag on the economy both locally and nationwide.

 

If a woman is working a high-labor job and intends to start a family, it would be pragmatic and responsible to make an adjustment in your livelihood.  Just showing up to Verizon one day and letting them know that they need to make a change for you is a poor plan.  Why?!?  Because why should Verizon care?  They’ve got a business to run.  Does the health care plan not cover birth control?  This ain’t Hobby Lobby.

 

Ive met many, many women who were extremely fitness-focused and active through their pregnancies and miscarriages occur in a significant percentage of pregnancies.  Tough to pin this on the job.

 

This article/OP comments feels kinda like exploiting workplace miscarriages as a means to attack a market based economy on a philosophical level.  Not a very good look, imo.

 

#hottakes

 

So because a woman is employed by a company where hard, manual labor is required she should have to change/quit her job if she wants to start a family?  Or shouldn't start a family in the first place if her insurance covers birth control?  I like you Beal, but that take is ridiculous imo.

 

From the article itself, there are women providing doctor notes stating they should not lift over 15 lbs, or be put on a light work load.  And according to the women, those options were available and their direct supervisor refused to help them out and it resulted in a miscarriage.  Just because miscarriages are a lot more common doesn't dismiss the fact that severe stress/anxiety along with strenuous high impact exercise (in this case hard manual labor) can greatly increase that risk.

 

Another point the article makes is there really isn't anything from a legal standpoint (yet) that can be done as long as they treat everyone the same, regardless of the working conditions.  So because Worker A gets 12 hour shifts with a 30 minute lunch and three 15 minute breaks while loading 50lb boxes into trucks, that makes it ok to expect the same from Worker B who is pregnant with a note from their OBGYN stating they need to be put on light duty during the pregnancy?  Common sense and compassion would say no, that's not right.  

 

Listen, it would be one thing if their place of employment only had one option, which involved hard manual labor that required heavy lifting.  In that situation, the pregnant woman would be faced with the decision to continue working and increase the risk of miscarriage or quit and find another job that had less strenuous requirements.  But if there are options that allow her to continue employment while complying with the doctors request and the supervisor doesn't care, that's pretty ****ty.

[Popeman38]

14 minutes ago, Dont Taze Me Bro said:

Listen, it would be one thing if their place of employment only had one option, which involved hard manual labor that required heavy lifting.  In that situation, the pregnant woman would be faced with the decision to continue working and increase the risk of miscarriage or quit and find another job that had less strenuous requirements.  But if there are options that allow her to continue employment while complying with the doctors request and the supervisor doesn't care, that's pretty ****ty.

Who does the work that the pregnant worker was hired to do?  Are you removing an office worker and allowing the pregnant worker to do their job?  You can't just "create" a position for a worker, and have the rest of the workforce absorb her work.  You are effectively telling a company they have to create 2 new jobs to accommodate a pregnancy...

 

EDIT: Normally, a bad back causes a worker to miss work and they go in STD/LTD and the employer is relieved of the obligation to pay the salary of the disabled worker.  They can hire a temporary replacement to complete the work that was normally done by the worker.  None of that exists for pregnancy (with exceptions for certain conditions).

[Springfield]

No, if I hired you for a job that requires manual labor then I’m not changing your position if you become pregnant.  I can curtail your intensive tasks, but I’m not simply moving your position or creating a new one because you’ve become pregnant.  That’s absurd.

[Destino]

37 minutes ago, Why am I Mr. Pink? said:

All you've done here is advise people not to have children if they wish to remain employed in a job field not suitable for pregnant women and imagine it perfectly reasonable. 

 

I dont necessarily agree with Beal but I added the bolded part to more closely reflect what he was perhaps trying to say.

My point was that pretending to be reasonable by saying some jobs simply aren't suitable for pregnant women doesn't work because that logic readily extends well beyond the physically strenuous.  Not to mention the definition of what physical work qualifies as too strenuous varies from pregnancy to pregnancy. Lifting 20 ipads is something many pregnant women can do, but it's not something a pregnant woman that is suffering complications should be doing.  Particularly when a doctor is advising it. 

 

Saying that any and all careers that require any physical labor are closed to women if they are even open to the idea of having kids in the future builds in a massive disadvantage.  It also works to worsen the situation for pregnant women by supporting the idea that they shouldn't be reasonably accommodated.  The message becomes "if they can't take it, they are to blame and should quit."  If our economy was such that most families could get by with only one adult working, that might make things more manageable, but those days are gone forever.  Most women have to work, kids or not, and as such the economy can't just ignore them. 

[Renegade7]

Some companies are large enough to move people around and pay for temp workers to fill responsibilities someone all the sudden cant, some companies cannot.  There is a problem here that doing nothing isnt solving.  Now would be a good time for someone to bring up how or if this is being addressed in other countries, US is infamously behind in regards to workplace protections.

[Destino]

6 minutes ago, Springfield said:

No, if I hired you for a job that requires manual labor then I’m not changing your position if you become pregnant.  I can curtail your intensive tasks, but I’m not simply moving your position or creating a new one because you’ve become pregnant.  That’s absurd.

What do you do when employees gets injured but not so badly that they need to go on disability?  I ask because I worked in a warehouse in college.  It was fairly normal for employees to hurt, sick, or have other issues.  We shuffled the work force to cover it.  It's not reasonable to send everyone with a dislocated finger off to disability.  New workers, even temps, have to be trained and they may not work out.  It's more of a hassle, and more expensive, to bring in new people than just shuffle responsibilities around temporarily in my experience. 

 

Why is it different when someone pregnant suffer complications?

[Going Commando]

Beal highlighted a core issue: we put what should be the government's responsibility on the business community.  Most business are not best equipped to make decisions about the healthcare of their employees and yet they must.  There is no common sense regulation.  There is no single payer healthcare.  What we've got is a hodgepodge of systems that are monstrously ineffective and inefficient and a smattering of cases of ugly injustice, one type of which this article highlights, and they are probably a lot more widespread than we imagine.  Americans are forced to make so many ****ing terrible and inhumane choices about their healthcare, this is just another drop in the ocean of our disgraceful healthcare system.

[Renegade7]

7 minutes ago, Destino said:

Lifting 20 ipads is something many pregnant women can do, but it's not something a pregnant woman that is suffering complications should be doing.  Particularly when a doctor is advising it. 

 

I hope this doesnt get lost in the discussion, because even if a company cant completely accommodate someone who becomes pregnant, we have to be more human then ignoring a doctor's note to meet the bottom line.  

 

My dad didnt get pregnant, but went through something similar with his last employer.  He was typically only manager on the floor, so typically would skip lunch.  Hed get home real late as closing manager, to point sometimes he wouldnt eat and had meds that said dont take without eating, even after bringing it up multiple times. He either would or would not take them, next thing you know his A1C goes from in the 100s to damn near 480 in like a month, to point he uses his tester again versus just listening to his body.  Employeer got tired of his doctors notes trying to get that in order and threatened to fire him.  Dude put his life on the line for that company and their response was to threaten to replace him.  We can do better.

[Springfield]

4 minutes ago, Destino said:

What do you do when employees gets injured but not so badly that they need to go on disability?  I ask because I worked in a warehouse in college.  It was fairly normal for employees to hurt, sick, or have other issues.  We shuffled the work force to cover it.  It's not reasonable to send everyone with a dislocated finger off to disability.  New workers, even temps, have to be trained and they may not work out.  It's more of a hassle, and more expensive, to bring in new people than just shuffle responsibilities around temporarily in my experience. 

 

Why is it different when someone pregnant suffer complications?

 

Which is why minor concessions can be made.  But for instance, in my field, a salesman can not do the same job that a technician can do.  It’s not possible.  What is more likely is that other technicians will do the work of the limited technician.

[PleaseBlitz]

Another factor that exasperates this issue is our country's trend towards fewer huge companies, rather than more smaller companies.  When you are one of 150,000 Verizon employees (or insert any huge company), you treat your employees as commodities, not as people.  

 

 

[TradeTheBeal!]

9 minutes ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

Beal highlighted a core issue: we put what should be the government's responsibility on the business community.  Most business are not best equipped to make decisions about the healthcare of their employees and yet they must.  There is no common sense regulation.  There is no single payer healthcare.  What we've got is a hodgepodge of systems that are monstrously ineffective and inefficient and a smattering of cases of ugly injustice, one type of which this article highlights, and they are probably a lot more widespread than we like.  Americans are forced to make so many ****ing terrible and inhumane choices about their healthcare, this is just another drop in the ocean of our disgraceful healthcare system.

 

This.  You can update the Pregnancy Discrimination Act and pass all manner of workplace legislation you want, but it’s still just a band-aid at best.  You have to take the onus off of the employer.

 

Our for-profit health system is irrevocably flawed.  And Verizon or XPO or even your local Mazda dealer is not the source of the problem.