From today’s Los Angeles Times:
As travel ground to a halt in April 2020, the janitorial staff at a hotel chain were furloughed. When business resumed, everyone was called back — everyone, that is, except the mothers.
In a pandemic layoff at another company, only two people lost their jobs — one was a new mother, the other was on maternity leave.
When a woman complained about insufficient COVID-19 protection at a warehouse distribution center, her bosses retaliated by rescheduling her, making it nearly impossible for her to supervise her children’s remote schooling and do her job at the same time.
We see discrimination against parents at the UC Hastings Law School Center for WorkLife Law during normal times, but calls to our hotline increased sevenfold as COVID-19 took hold.
It’s no news that workers are vulnerable because of the weakness of American employment laws, but it may be news that their family responsibilities may put them at greater risk.
Employers prefer “ideal” workers, the kind whose home lives don’t impose on workdays or require even occasional flexibility. The pandemic upended the notion that cookie-cutter rigidity is a work prerequisite, but it also gave some bosses cover to stick with the old mindset, as the workers who’ve been calling us discovered.
California is considering legislation that would push such employers into new thinking.
Assembly Bill 1119, now under committee consideration, would amend the state’s Fair Employment and Housing Act in two ways: It would make it illegal for employers to discriminate against people seeking, obtaining and holding work based on family caregiving responsibilities. And it would require employers to give regular caregivers — those with “direct and ongoing” responsibilities for children and other family members — simple accommodations, such as the right to arrive a few minutes late when school or childcare becomes unexpectedly unavailable, unless the accommodation imposes an undue hardship on the employer.
Read the complete article here.