The United States Supreme Court has agreed to decide a case on whether decades-old maternity leaves should count in determining pensions.Apparently, the issue at hand has split federal appeals courts and could become increasingly important as women who took maternity leaves in the 1960s and 70s approach retirement.
These pregnancies happened before the federal Pregnancy Discrimination Act, enacted in 1979. That Act barred companies from treating pregnancy leaves differently from other disability leaves. Since then, maternity leave has been credited toward retirement.
The case before the Supreme Court involves four AT&T Corporation employees who each took at least one maternity leave between 1968 and 1976. They have 67–261 days of uncredited leave because their pregnancies occurred before the law changed.
Normally, I might not blog about this issue; however, having just returned from “paternity” leave myself, I do have an interest here. And, to be honest, I’m a little torn about what I think about the subject.
It seems to me that if these leaves were taken prior to the Act being passed, then those women should not be entitled to this leave credit. Seems to me that if we grant them this leave, then we are opening ourselves up to all kinds of “credit” that people will feel entitled to, even though at the time, they were not entitled to the credit.
If I bought at car in 1999 at 7% interest, but the car company comes out with a 0% rate in 2008, should I be given some type of credit since I obviously overpaid?
If I eat grapes every day because they are healthy for me, but in 10 years a new study finds that eating grapes every day causes major health issues, shouldn’t get I get some type of credit from someone? Somewhere?
Or, if I started a job in 1970 at $7,000 a year, but new people hired in 2008, for the same job now make $40,000 a year, shouldn’t I get a credit for the difference in what I started at and the new person starts at?
I’m thinking there are too many problems involved with this type of credit.
What do you think?
