Just because it’s legal doesn’t make it right.
The Ohio Supreme Court has ruled that businesses can fire women for taking time off to give birth or for pregnancy-related leave if they haven’t worked the minimum amount of time required to earn leave. In McFee v. Nursing Care Mgmt. of Am., Inc., the court ruled 5-1 that “an employment policy that imposes a uniform minimum-length-of-service requirement for leave eligibility with no exception for maternity leave is not direct evidence of sex discrimination.” Maybe not, but that doesn’t mean it’s not terrible policy.
Tiffany McFee, had been working at the Pataskala Oaks Care Center, a subacute and rehabilitation facility with the motto “Caring is What We Do Best” (oh, the irony!), for eight months when a doctor ordered her to stop working for a pregnancy-related condition. Soon after she gave birth. She was fired three days later because she took leave before she was eligible. Company policy requires an employee work a year prior to taking leave for any purpose.
The ruling was based on a law that allows “an employer to terminate an employee for any nondiscriminatory reason” and another that states pregnant employees must be treated “the same for all employment-related purposes.” The court wrote in its ruling, “we do not agree with the premise that McFee was terminated on the basis of pregnancy. Instead, she was let go for taking unauthorized leave from her employment.” This is the same court, remember, that doesn’t consider breastfeeding a pregnancy-related issue.
The case never should have gone to court. Pataskala Oaks Care Center and its parent company, Nursing Care Mgmt. of America, Inc., should have a maternity policy in place for employees with short tenure. It is ridiculous to expect that hopeful or expectant mothers can fully control when they get pregnant. Miscarriages, infertility and a whole host of other factors can interfere with a woman’s plan (Not to mention the move in this country to restrict a woman’s access to the full spectrum of reproductive health options.)
The United States ranks poorly for maternity leave policies, infant mortality rates and maternal death rates. More than two women die every day in the United States from pregnancy related causes and the incidences of “near-miss” complications, where a woman comes close to dying from pregnancy or childbirth, have increased since 2005. What would Nursing Care Mgmt. of America have preferred, that Ms. McFee give birth at work during her lunch hour? Did they really want that responsibility? (My coworkers didn;t even want me to leave breastmilk in the company refigerator never mind leave an afterbirth mess on the office floor.) More likely, they would prefer to hire childless women and not assume the burden of a workforce with uteruses. Maybe they’d even pay a childfree workforce fair or better wages.
The courts may feel restricted by the laws when deciding case like this, so our lawmakers need to wake up too. According to Moms Rising, having a baby is a leading cause of poverty in the U.S. Women represent 51 percent of the population and the majority of our national workforce right now. Women are breadwinners in two-thirds of all U.S. households. Can our national economy really afford to continue to discriminate against such a large segment of the workforce? It’s time corporate America and our legislators recognized these facts and created work/family policies that truly work.
Major eye-rolling ensued when I read the 
When it comes to fashion, I’ve always believed in quality over quantity. I’m a big fan of amortizing my purchases — dividing the estimated number of times I’ll wear something by the cost of the item and then adding in maintenance fees. It helps justify a big ticket item.
