May 16, 2018
Two female former employees of AT&T Mobility LLC this week accused the company of discriminating against pregnant women, alleging that they were both fired for missing work because of pregnancy-related medical care. One of the women claims she was fired from her job at a store in Las Vegas for taking time off to deal with her infant son’s emergency medical care, and another alleges she endured discriminatory harassment while pregnant and was fired from an Indiana store two days after returning from maternity leave.
Cynthia Allen and Katia Hills say the subsidiary of telecommunications giant AT&T penalized them under the company’s nationwide “Sales Attendance Guidelines” policy, a “no-fault” system that assigns points for all absences unless they are “excused.” There is no “grace period.”
The women allege that AT&T Mobility’s attendance policy discriminates against pregnant women and is a violation of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA), the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). They have filed a class-action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana; Hills worked at a retail store in Elkhart, Ind.
Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC and the American Civil Liberties Union’s Women’s Rights Project represent the plaintiffs in this matter.