Job Protections for Parents Debated

After her first child’s birth, Diana Piantanida had planned to join the legions of Americans who juggle paid work and parenthood. But two weeks into her maternity leave, the St. Louis woman learned that she would be returning to her employer to fill what her boss allegedly called “a job a new mom could handle”--at half the pay and much less responsibility.

Piantanida cried foul, charging that her employer was discriminating against her because she was a parent. But in the five years since she took the Wyman Center of St. Louis to court, judge after judge has effectively shrugged and told her that her boss had done nothing wrong. “There was no protection whatsoever for me,” Piantanida says now.

In 42 states, including California, there is no explicit protection for workers who believe that their employers have treated them unfairly because they have children. And many employers--even those who compete to be recognized as “family friendly”--do not want any.

“It would provide a weapon for poorly performing employees to use improperly,” said Angel Gomez III, an employment-law attorney based in Century City.

In the next few weeks, President Clinton plans to enter the debate by introducing legislation in the Senate that would outlaw workplace discrimination against parents.

In part, Clinton’s calculus is political. With Democrats and Republicans competing to be seen as champions of working families, Clinton’s proposed legislation could become a rallying cry for Democrats and pose a dilemma for many Republicans. In the 2000 elections when both parties will be wooing an army of “soccer moms,” standing for parental rights is a natural for Democrats--and a temptation for Republicans.

Clinton is also betting on support from social conservatives who often feel that their commitment to families hurts them in the workplace.

The merging of odd political alliances, “is classically Clintonesque,” said Democratic pollster Celinda Lake.

Need for Legislation Is Challenged

Some employment experts question the need for legislation. Susan Meissenger of the American Society of Human Resources Managers, called such protections “a solution in search of a problem.”

With the labor market tight, and expected to stay that way for years to come, employers are working overtime to make their workplaces more family friendly, she said. In addition to tying personnel managers up in more red tape, she added, “all this does is make politicians feel good.”

However, if business-oriented Republicans oppose legislation, Lake warned, they probably will be seen as anti-family. And they could pay dearly for it at the polls, as President Bush did when he twice vetoed a bill requiring employers to offer unpaid leave to parents of newborns or workers caring for sick relatives.

The Family and Medical Leave Act, the first bill Clinton signed into law when he took office in 1993, has proved extremely popular with working families. Derided at the time as a toothless sop to special interests, it has enabled thousands of Americans to stay home when family illness or birth required it--even if they had to do so without a paycheck.

Some family law experts think that the proposed Parental Discrimination Bill could provoke a similar response.

Although few workers currently charge that they have faced discrimination because they are parents, Donna Lenhoff of the National Partnership for Women and Families argued that may be because such protections are not explicitly contained in civil rights law. If such a bar were clarified by legislation, Lenhoff and others believe, more parents would come forward.

But for all the political appeal of a parent-discrimination statute, attorneys who specialize in employment law said that complainants will not be coming out of the woodwork any time soon. Proving parental discrimination would remain difficult even with an explicit prohibition in place.

And beyond that, employment specialists maintain, it just does not happen very often.

“Obviously it makes for a sexy campaign topic, but in California, there doesn’t seem to be a need from an employee’s side,” said Gomez, the Century City attorney.

Years ago, demonstrating such discrimination might have been easier, at least for women. Many companies explicitly excluded mothers of small children from certain positions, such as those requiring travel or lots of extra hours. Today, few companies do so openly, and many employers have sought to accommodate those who juggle work and family responsibilities with flexible new policies on, among other things, sick leave, work hours and use of compensatory time.

Lenhoff acknowledged that a law protecting parents may be used infrequently but drew a different conclusion from that of employer representatives like Meissenger.

“If it isn’t really a problem, if these kind of underlying stereotypes don’t motivate employers’ decisions, then why does it hurt to prohibit it, in case there are six people out there who do retain those stereotypes?” she asked. “It seems like an important principle.”

Fathers Might Benefit From Proposed Law

With men getting more involved in their children’s care, New York employment attorney Steven Eckhaus said, he can easily envision more fathers alleging workplace discrimination in the future.

For now, however, Eckhaus said women would probably benefit most from the proposed law.

He represents Joann Trezza, a New York-based insurance attorney and mother of two children, 6 and 11 years old. Trezza has taken her employer, the Hartford Financial Services Group, to court, charging that she has been passed over repeatedly for promotion in favor of less-qualified employees who are either men or childless women.

In Trezza’s complaint, she cites comments by senior attorneys in Hartford’s legal department that disparaged the job performance of working mothers generally. In one comment--denied by its alleged source--one of her bosses opined at a business dinner that “women are not good planners, especially women with kids.”

But Trezza’s case may well be as difficult as Piantanida’s was five years ago. “Parenthood is not a protected class under Title VII,” wrote U.S. District Judge Michael Mukasey in a December ruling limiting the scope of the trial against Hartford.

Trezza has declined to comment on the case, which is still pending. But Piantanida said that she knows what it feels like when parenthood costs you a job.

“I was all alone. Everywhere I turned I felt like I was hitting brick walls.”