吃瓜大本营

As any woman who鈥檚 ever been pregnant will tell you, those nine months can be a physical roller coaster, with symptoms ranging from nausea to intense fatigue to joint pain to urinary infections. And that鈥檚 just a 鈥渘ormal鈥� pregnancy. Countless women also suffer from complications like hypertension, diabetes, and placenta previa. At the very least, pregnant women need to see their doctors once a month for prenatal care, increasing in frequency to bi-weekly and then weekly in the final stages of pregnancy.

Consequently, whether it鈥檚 because of morning sickness, a delay at the doctor鈥檚 office, or pain so severe that she needs to go home before quitting time, pregnancy is virtually assured of interfering with even the most diligent employee鈥檚 ability to work her usual hours. That this major medical event might disrupt a woman鈥檚 schedule should come as no surprise. But what is surprising is how unforgiving our workplaces are to pregnant workers 鈥� and to any worker who fails to be in perfect health every hour of every day.

Our country鈥檚 shameful and has been well-publicized. Less well-known is the prevalence of 鈥渘o-fault鈥� attendance policies, which do not distinguish among the reasons an employee might be late or absent. No-fault policies punish tardiness and absence with demerit 鈥減oints鈥� and, at a certain threshold, result in termination.

That鈥檚 exactly what happened to our clients Katia Hills and Cynthia Allen, whose pregnancies cost them their sales jobs with AT&T Mobility. Today, the ACLU Women鈥檚 Rights Project joined the law firms of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll and Indianapolis-based Cohen and Malad to file a nationwide class-action lawsuit charging that AT&T Mobility鈥檚 no-fault attendance policies for retail employees violate the Pregnancy Discrimination Act. The suit also brings individual claims on Hills鈥檚 and Allen鈥檚 behalf under the Family and Medical Leave Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act.

No-fault policies, also known euphemistically as 鈥渕aximum leave鈥� or 鈥渁bsence control鈥� policies, have been growing in popularity among employers . But their potential for violating employees鈥� civil rights has been recognized from the start. Indeed, the cautioned in 1993 against companies using a no-fault policy to penalize employees for FMLA-qualifying absences 鈥� such as to attend to one鈥檚 own serious medical condition or to care for a seriously ill family member. The Labor Department still continues employers against assessing points for FMLA-qualifying leave 鈥� including 鈥�,鈥� which can be as short as a day or even an hour.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission considers it a violation of the to assign points for tardiness or absence attributable to an employee鈥檚 disability, unless permitting the leave would pose an undue hardship to the employer. Employers that ignore this directive can face stiff consequences. In 2011, to settle the EEOC鈥檚 ADA lawsuit challenging the company鈥檚 no-fault attendance plan. It鈥檚 the largest ADA settlement to date.

Although precise statistics about no-fault policies鈥� prevalence are hard to come by, a of over 1,000 human resources professionals found that 40 percent of their employers relied on some form of 鈥渁bsence control.鈥� Meanwhile, a of union arbitration proceedings found that terminations or other disciplinary actions for absences caused by personal or family needs featured prominently among the disputes.

No-fault policies are especially common in , like health care and retail, and in , such as construction, janitorial services, and transportation. After all, these are jobs that prize workers鈥� output over all else 鈥� sales numbers, production quotas, customers served. Walmart, the nation鈥檚 largest private employer, is currently the target of discrimination charges stemming from its point-based attendance policy, whose many harms to pregnant, sick, and disabled workers and family caregivers were documented in by the worker activists and advocacy group, A Better Balance.

Our lawsuit against AT&T Mobility appears to be the first of its kind: a class-action lawsuit challenging a company-wide no-fault policy on behalf of pregnant workers. For the many employees harmed by the policy at the company, and the thousands more at employers around the country for whom pregnancy and family obligations have earned them a pink slip, we are sending a message: Workers are human beings, not machines.

Are you a current or former retail employee of AT&T Mobility? Were you fired for points accumulated due to absences, late arrivals, or early departures due to your pregnancy?