Huge Pregnancy-Bias Settlement Is OKd

A multimillion-dollar settlement covering more than 13,000 women workers who contended that they were illegally denied company benefits after becoming pregnant received preliminary approval Wednesday.

A federal magistrate in Chicago approved an agreement between the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and American Telephone & Telegraph that would give the women $66 million--the largest cash award in a discrimination case in the commission’s history.

Commission attorney John Hendrickson said the size of the award may deter employers from discriminatory practices because any short-term financial gain from discrimination will not “outweigh relief you have to pay victims tomorrow.”

Patricia Ireland, executive vice president of the National Organization for Women, said the case tells “corporate leaders that this type of liability is out there.” The message for women, Ireland said, is that “speaking up for your rights is an important way to win.”

The agreement, subject to a hearing in October before it is finalized, arises from a 1983 class-action suit filed by workers of Western Electric, which became part of AT&T.;

Among policies the workers contended were discriminatory was one that forced women to take unpaid maternity leave at the end of their sixth month of pregnancy. Women also had no guarantee that they could return to the same or a similar job after their leave.

Many large employers had such pregnancy policies until the 1970s. Commission attorneys said passage of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978, which extended to pregnant women the protections of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, prompted many companies to change their policies.

Still, Melissa Josephs of the Women Employed Institute, a Chicago-based research group, said discrimination related to pregnancy is almost as common as calls about sexual harassment. She said women regularly call with questions such as: “ ‘If I’m pregnant, should I tell my employer? When should I tell him?’ Or people say they were fired or demoted when they come back” after a pregnancy.

Josephs said that in a few extreme cases women have called saying they were fired after announcing their engagement, but attorneys and women’s rights organizations said such cases are uncommon.