The upcoming Supreme Court decision will affect working women across the country — for better or worse. (Getty Images)
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court
began to hear arguments in the case of Young v. the United Parcel
Service: A woman named Peggy Young is suing UPS for violation of the
Pregnancy Discrimination Act, saying she temporarily lost her job as a
UPS driver once the company found out she was pregnant.
What’s the Case About?
Young had been with UPS for four
years and worked an early morning shift delivering envelopes and small
parcels at the airport. When she became pregnant, her doctor told her to
make sure not to lift packages over 20 lbs, a task that Young rarely
did and which her colleagues offered to help with should the situation
arise.
UPS, however, said that Young was
no longer able to perform her job and thus placed her on unpaid leave
for the duration of her pregnancy. “I lost my health benefits,” she told
The New York Times. “I lost my pension. And I lost my wages for seven months. And my disability benefits.”
Young with her 7-year-old daughter, with whom she was pregnant when she was put on leave by UPS. (Photo by AP)
What’s So Complicated About This Situation?
Though
UPS does give “light duty” – jobs that do not necessarily involve
lifting or even driving to those injured on the job, legally disabled,
or even those who had their licenses suspended due to drunk driving
convictions, the company didn’t extend a similar offer to Young. Their
reasoning: The the Pregnancy Discrimination Act states that “women
affected by pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions shall be
treated the same for all employment-related purposes, including receipt
of benefits under fringe benefit programs, as other persons not so
affected.”
Though
the law was clearly passed to protect pregnant women from on-the-job
discrimination, UPS’s interpretation essentially claims that by placing
Young on leave, they were simply treating her like anyone else who
couldn’t perform their job.
What Have The Supreme Court Justices Said So Far?
The members of the Supreme Court
had lots of questions for counsel on both sides of this case on
Wednesday, trying to dig deeper and get to the heart of what the
intention of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act was when it was first
passed in 1978. (A single semi-colon in the original act was even
debated.)
Peggy Young at The Supreme Court on Wednesday, December 3rd. (Photo by AP)
Furthermore, the Court posed a series of hypotheticals
to understand the full extent to which UPS chooses to differentiate
various types of employees, such as “extra pay for driving a hazardous
delivery route, a limo ride to work for the upper echelon, and a worker
who falls off an all-terrain vehicle on a weekend away from work.”
Each example was a factual
inquiry, and, supposedly, the answer to each would clarify when
discrimination exists or does not exist.
What’s The Weirdest Thing About The Case?
The Young case has garnered
extra attention for the way in which it has united both pro-choice and
pro-life advocates around a single issue, insisting that women should
not be penalized for becoming pregnant and bringing a child into the
world. Because despite the opinions held by both sides on what
constitutes life and the choices a woman has around her own body, a
woman’s right to work shouldn’t have to be a choice of any kind.
What’s The Takeaway?
Women who want to work should be
able to: Pregnant women, women who are mothers, women who are caring
for elderly parents, women who are single or just beginning their
careers. All women in this country should be entitled to the right to
work if they want to – and be paid equally and have the same
opportunities available to them as their male peers
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