What Ever Happened to Common Decency and Compassion?

At the workplace, apparently, it's being forced out by the Almighty Bottom Line.

Today's New York Times carries a deeply depressing article by Rachel Swarns about the risks of being pregnant in the workplace. No, not the risk of harm to your developing child, the risk of getting fired for the fact of being pregnant. Oh, and: to hell with the legality of that action.

According to the article, the 39-year-old woman, who had suffered a miscarriage the previous year, arrived to work with a note from her doctor saying that her current pregnancy was again high-risk and she should work no more than eight hours a day. Eight hours a day, five days a week -- that sounds like a fulltime job to me.

And the job was critically important to her financial stability. She earned $8.70 an hour (after three years on the job -- there's another whole post in that comment alone); her husband was a driver for a private bus company. Together, they earned enough to cover their expenses, including a "studio apartment in Corona, Queens." Not exactly high living, but they were getting by.

What would her bosses say? She worried and prayed.

...[It] was the busy season at the Fierman Produce Exchange, and her bosses had already told her she had to work overtime. So as Ms. Valencia sorted potatoes on that Aug. 8 morning, she worried: How would her supervisors respond to the doctor’s note? At the end of her shift, would she still have a job?

Stop right here and think what you would do if you were Ms. Valencia's employer.

Here's what happened: 

...[When] Ms. Valencia told her supervisors in July that she had a high-risk pregnancy, they told her she could work only without restrictions, she said. After taking time off to try to negotiate an accommodation with the company, she returned when her co-workers volunteered to handle the heavy machinery and lifting.

In August, she said, her supervisors insisted that she work overtime. Ms. Valencia felt so ill after two lengthy shifts that she went to the hospital and then to her doctor, who gave her the letter that she handed to her boss.

....

Ms. Valencia said she begged her managers to excuse her from overtime as her doctor had recommended. She pointed out that the company’s busy season typically ended in September, and that overtime was rarely needed during the rest of the year.

But her managers insisted that she could not work without a full-duty medical clearance. So Ms. Valencia turned in her company identification and wept as she started the long commute home.

 Excuse me?

This seems like a clear violation of the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, a New York City ordinance which took effect in January of this year, and

...[which] requires employers to make reasonable accommodations for pregnant workers — such as providing rest and water breaks, modified schedules and light duty — so long as the accommodations don’t cause undue hardship for the employer. Makes sense, right? It’s actually critical, particularly for low-income women who sometimes get pushed out of their jobs — and into poverty — when they become pregnant.

But I actually care less about the legality than about the stunning lack of basic human decency. We are, after all, talking about a temporary disability. What if Ms. Valencia had broken a bone or strained muscles? Would that be grounds for pushing her to leave? (And note: the story does not make it clear whether she was actually fired, in which case she would be eligible for limited unemployment insurance, or pushed into resigning, in which case she wouldn't.)

Ms. Valencia's co-workers had the decency to offer to help with the most physically demanding elements of her job. But her bosses didn't have the decency to hire temporary workers to pick up the slack during the their busy season.

And some people still wonder whether there's a need for unions today. Ask Ms. Valencia.