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Ex-VP says she was treated like 'second-class citizen' after having kids.
A former Goldman Sachs vice president who accuses the firm of shuffling her career off to the "mommy track" when she took maternity leave is suing the company for discrimination. Charlotte Hanna's lawsuit alleges that she was demoted and moved into positions with no potential for advancement when she returned to work after having her first child—and was fired just before she returned from her second maternity leave.
I don't think the article really gave enough information for me to have an opinion on this particular situation.
But in general, demoting or firing an employee simply because she took a standard 6-8 weeks of maternity leave (per child) seems excessive and wrong. I'm guessing there's a whole lot more to this story.
Here's the thing- there are some jobs you can stay home from for two months and not miss anything, and there are other jobs where everything can change in a matter of days. I imagine a VP at a huge company would be sorely missed for two months. Her workload would have been shifted to other colleagues, which would negate her former position upon her return. I have several career minded friends who have decided not to have children for this very reason. My guess is, upon returning to work, she was no longer able to work the same long hours and had to deal with a lot more mommy distractions, lowering her productivity. If a male employee's productivity dropped, he'd be fired. By placing her in a position with less responsibility, she would be able to take more time for her kids without damaging the company's productivity. Despite what we women are spoonfed, it's very hard to do it all and to have it all. Something has to give, and if you have a very important job with lots of responsibility and you can't do it well because of your children, that is something the company has to deal with. Were this woman a cashier or a teacher or some position where another employee could cover for a few months without much of a problem, then firing her would be unfair because it doesn't affect the company's performance. However, she was a vice president in charge of (presumably) huge amounts of business and based on my experience with new mothers, she was almost definitely unable to put the same time and effort into her job that she once had. If she can't do her job the way it needs to be done, why shouldn't she be fired?
If a woman wants to work once she has children, that's fine, but if she can't perform her job to the standard it needs to be done, then why on earth should she expect to stay in charge?
Well the article does say that the woman was part of a group of people who were terminated, 75% of whom were on maternity leave or had recently returned from leave. That certainly sounds suspicious. But Goldman-Sachs has had enough problems and having laid off ~5,000 workers over the past two years, it could be very hard to prove that pregnancy was the reason.
And I think there is legal basis for lost productivity being the reason for termination, regardless of if the reason behind the lost productivity is pregnancy or something else. As others have said, taking maternity leave means you are not contributing to the profitability and productivity of the company. In better years that may just mean you don't get a bonus. But in lean years when the company has to lay people off, that more likely means you will lose your job.
And yeah, I think it is totally fair that a person gets the axe when they've only contributed to 9 months of productivity instead of 12. If you've worked hard all year, would you think it is fair that you got laid off when someone else who was on maternity leave got to keep their job?
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