Dear Evil HR Lady,
My company does not have enough employees to qualify for FMLA. However, they are generously letting me take 14 weeks of maternity leave (2 weeks paid, the rest unpaid). We are in a highly male dominated industry. There are several male employees who’s wives are due to have children around the same time as me and the company is only allowing the male employees to take a maximum of 2 weeks PTO. While I can see the difference in these situations (especially being the female and the one actually giving birth!), I’m concerned that this could be viewed as a discrimination issue, since we are treating male and female employees differently and we aren’t having to abide by any federal legislation. Thoughts?
I don't know for sure what the legal ramifications of this are. Surely allowing women to take the 6-8 weeks off is okay because giving birth necessarily means you are "disabled" for that time period. But, allowing more time where you aren't "disabled" and making it based on gender could be problematic.
If it were me, I'd allow both male and female employees the 12 weeks of leave. Chances are, very few men will take the leave, so the company doesn't lose anything and they are protected from a potential discrimination lawsuit. Of course, someone will pipe up that men in Sweden all take time off now, but they also get paid leave.
No comments:
Post a Comment