Pregnacny Pay for Womern but not Men?

jfletcher

3 months new to the HR Mgr. position with this company and here's one I haven't seen before. Past practice by old Pres. and HR Mgr. (because she became pregnant and initiated it for herself!) was that any woman who went out on pregnancy leave was paid 3 wks of regular salary and then also received STD pay. I question the practice just because, but I have raised a concern to the new President that what if one of the men came to him and wanted the 3 wks. pay for his wife's pregnancy/birth. Both recieve the same FMLA rights, that I know these are govt., but by establishing this precedent do we set ourselves up for potential bias/discrimination claims by the men who ask for the pay and don't get it because they cannot physically reproduce (if they can I'm calling Jerry Springer)? Any options/advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks

Balloonman1

No reason that you cannot offer pregnancy pay to any man who becomes pregnant. Their wife's pregnancy is a completely different issue..... that her employer will have to deal with.
You could offer something to the men, that would be pretty progressive.
My $0.02 worth,
DJ The Balloonman

Dutch2

I agree with Ballonman, if a man becomes pregnant, he should receive something.
However, we consider pregnancy the same as any illness as far as compensation is concerned. If the ee has sick time available they may use this, if needed they may also use available vacation time. Our STD kicks in on day 31 and most are out 6 to 8 weeks; therefore they must use sick time or vacation to cover the first 30 days off.
Good luck,
Dutch2

bsa

Pregnancies should be treated the same as any other illness, no better or no worse. So it seems to me that your President and HR Mgr set a precedence to pay anyone off work long term due to illness to get 3 weeks paid!!

If a man requested the same benefit and you did not give it to him... then you have discriminated against him because of his sex.

Don D

I agree with BSA. The issue is not should you offer pay to a man whose wife becomes pregnant. The issue is whether you would offer 3 weeks pay to the male employee who bacame medically disqualified to work. The two must be treated equally, without regard to the manner or description of the illness/disability. Pregnant, broken foot, prostatitis, hemorroids, ear wax infection and surgery, prolapsed cranium, whatever. If your investigation reveals that you do not do this, what you have is just old fashioned discrimination, which is against the law.

Ethel

Like everyone is saying, handling Pregnancy like any other illness the is best way to go for the company. It removes the discrimination issue and and employee is fairly treated. Our company handles this issue under our STD policy and the STD time is dependent on length of employment. If employee runs out of STD, employee can use EARNED vacation to augment. Good luck!