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Reduced Hours and Maternity Leave

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M

malops

Guest
What is the name of your state? Massachusetts

We currently have an hourly employee who is experiencing difficulties with her pregnancy, and has been out for over two weeks. She has used all of the time available in her paid time off bank. Her doctor has recommended that she work a reduced schedule. The current plan is for her to work 20 hours per week. The company does not have a short term disability policy, and has less than 50 employees.

My questions are as follows: Since this employee is working a reduced schedule, does this classify her as a part time employee. Or can she still be considered full time, but working less hours due to her medical condition. Management's current plan is to continue to pay her medical insurance. They have not made a determination on whether she will be allowed to accrue sick/vacation time or be paid for company holidays. There are other part time employees at this company who are not entitled to sick, vacation, holidy pay, or health benefits.

If the company continues to pay the employee's medical insurance although she is working part time, do they have to do the same for other part time employees?

Does the company have to continue to allow the employee on reduced hours due to her medical condition to accrue vacation/sick time and pay her for company holidays?

When she goes on Maternity Leave it will be for 8 weeks unpaid. The company will continue to pay her medical insurance, but there will be no accruals of vacation/sick time during her leave period.

Thanks for your advice.
 


L

loku

Guest
The general rule is that companies with 15 or more employees are prohibited from discriminating against employees on the basis of gender. Pregnancy discrimination is gender discrimination. What this means is that you may not treat a woman differently than other employees because of her pregnancy. If she must work short hours, then she must be treated the same as other employees working the short hours. It would probably be an accommodation if you were to continue her health insurance while not doing the same for other employees, so that would probably be OK. Since your company has no short term disability policy, it would be difficult for the company to show that she was not being discriminated against if she lost benefits because of the pregnancy.

As you can see, this is a fairly complex problem and there are no definite answers, so what I would suggest is that you contact a local employment law attorney before taking away any of her benefits.
 

cbg

I'm a Northern Girl
A pregnant employee is not entitled to any more benefits than anyone else. If other employees who work part time do not receive benefits, it could be considered discrimination against them if she does get benefits. I would strongly recommend that you speak to the MA Atty General's office (they function as the DOL in this state and are very helpful) as to the best way to proceed. The phone number is Boston is 6170727-3476.
 
M

malops

Guest
reduced hours/maternity leave

Thanks for your advice. We are consulting with an employment attorney. Our biggest problem is that the employee hasn't been able to commit to any set schedule for the reduced hours. She says she is coming in, and then has more difficulties relating to the pregnancy and can't make it in. Since her doctors can't seem to find what is causing all her distress this seems like it is going to be an ongoing problem until the baby's birth.
 
J

JazmineB

Guest
I would be interested in hearing what happened in this case.
 
M

malops

Guest
The employee continued not to show up for work, and our attorney advised us that we were well within our rights to terminate her. The employee had been warned in the past (before her pregnancy) that her that further missed work would subject her to termination. The employee continued to state that she would be in work on a specific day, and then did not show up. She had also left a voicemail for her boss stating that she did not anticipate coming back to work until after the baby was born. (Note: our company only has ten employees.) The manager offered a part time employee full time work based on this voice mail. The pregnant employee subsequently stated that she did intend to return to work full time immediately, but did not show up for work. The decision was made to terminate her employment, provide her with four weeks of severance, and health insurance coverage through her pregnancy. The severance was offered on the condition that the employee sign a waiver agreeing not to sue the company (advice of our attorney). The employee applied for, and was approved for unemployment as the manager decided to classify her termination as a performance issue rather than a misconduct issue.
 
J

JazmineB

Guest
Thanks for responding. I didn't realize that she had attendance issues BEFORE the pregnancy complications. Also saying you'll come in and not arriving at work is not a good idea. I must say she lucked out w/ the severance and unemployment. Usually I imagine you're just let go or you're considered a voluntary termination.
 

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