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Former Google Employee’s Pregnancy Discrimination Suit Moves Foreward

Posted on September 5, 2019

A former Google employee whose memo alleging discrimination against pregnant women went viral is moving forward with her claim against the company.

“As a Google employee I witnessed pregnancy discrimination, and then was faced with it in my own life,” Chelsey Glasson, who worked at the Mountain View, Calif. company for more than five years as a user research lead and manager, said in a statement Wednesday. “And, like so many women, I felt threatened by retaliation for reporting the discrimination. This memo, which I published internally at Google and has been read by over 11,000 Google employees, states clearly why we must continue to fight this bias.”

Glasson added that employees who bring up pregnancy discrimination are often silenced or forced to suffer consequences that damage their careers in the long term.

“With a goal of shedding light on pregnancy discrimination and advocating for needed public policy and other changes, I will move forward with legal action,” she writes.

Two Google employees who helped to organize the 20,000-strong global walkout also alleged that the tech giant retaliated against them — a claim that the search giant has denied. The massive walkout was in response to issues of sexual harassment, as well as pay inequity and racial justice.

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EEOC Sues Walmart for Pregnancy Discrimination

Posted on September 23, 2018

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a lawsuit Saturday alleging that Walmart has violated federal law by discriminating against pregnant workers.

Pregnant employees were not given the chance to participate in a company program that allowed light-duty lifting while other workers with lifting restrictions were accommodated at Walmart’s distribution center in Menomonie, Wisconsin, EEOC’s lawsuit alleges.

“What our investigation indicated is that Walmart had a robust light duty program that allowed workers with lifting restrictions to be accommodated,” said Julianne Bowman, the EEOC’s district director in Chicago who managed the federal agency’s pre-suit administrative investigation. “But Walmart deprived pregnant workers of the opportunity to participate in its light duty program. This amounted to pregnancy discrimination, which violates federal law.”

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Exec sues Mets for out-of-wedlock pregnancy discrimination

Posted on September 12, 2014

The Mets first woman senior vice president is suing the Mets for pregnancy discrimination, claiming co-owner and chief operations officer Jeff Wilpon made several hostile statements to and about her unwed pregnancy while she worked for the company.

Leigh Castergine, a executive in the organization’s ticketing department, alleged in her suit that she lost her job because Wilpon was “morally opposed” to her being pregnant and unmarried.

The suit states that Wilpon told her “that when she gets a ring she will make more money and get a bigger bonus,” and in a meeting over a proposed ad deal said, “I am as morally opposed to putting an e-cigarette sign in my ballpark as I am to Leigh having this baby without being married.”

She said Wilpon’s son, Fred told Casterine’s co-workers to to not show interest in her unborn child.

“Do not rub her belly,” the lawsuit claims he warned them. “Don’t ask how she’s doing. She’s not sick, she’s pregnant.”

Castergine, complained to no resolution many times to human resources department, before filing a legal suit, court documents state. She said she was asked to drop her complaints in exchange to stay a year, rather than being immediately fired for low ticket sales.

When she rejected the deal and told her bosses she planned to file suit, they fired her on the spot, the suit states.

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