According to the Court’s opinion, AT&T—like many employers -- for many years awarded fewer pension credits to women for pregnancy/maternity leave than it did for other types of medical leave. In the 1960’s and early 1970’s, employees on disability leave received full pension credit, but employees on personal leave or pregnancy leave only received up to 30 days of pension credit. In 1976, the Supreme Court ruled in Gilbert v. General Electric that pension plans which provided less credit for pregnancy leave than other disability leaves did not constitute unlawful sex discrimination under Title VII. The following year, Congress amended Title VII by enacting the Pregnancy Discrimination Act to provide that it constituted sex discrimination to treat pregnancy less favorably than other medical conditions. AT&T immediately amended its pension plans so that all maternity leaves following the PDA’s passage would receive the same pension credits as other disability leaves. However, AT&T did not go back and retroactively award pension credits to current female employees who had previously taken maternity leave under the former pension plan and did not increase the pension benefits of retired female employees who had taken maternity leave under the former pension plan prior to the passage of the PDA.
Lawsuits and EEOC charges ensued against AT&T and the “baby bell companies.” The Courts of Appeal split on this issue (with the Seventh and Sixth Circuits ruling in favor of the employers). In the present case, four women – three retirees and a current employee – filed EEOC Charges because they were disadvantaged by two to six months in the calculation of their pension benefits on account of maternity leaves which they took prior to the passage of the PDA. The EEOC found probable cause of discrimination and issued right-to-sue letters. They filed suit in California and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ultimately ruled that AT&T’s refusal to issue retroactive pension credits violated Title VII and the PDA. The Supreme Court reversed.
The Court found that the pension plan was part of a bona fide seniority system which AT&T had utilized since approximately 1914. “As we have said, ‘[a] ‘seniority system’ is a scheme that, alone or in tandem with non-‘seniority’ criteria, allots to employees ever improving employment rights and benefits as their relative lengths of pertinent employment increase.” California Brewers Assn. v. Bryant, 444 U. S. 598, 605–06 (1980).” Even though it would violate the PDA to have such a seniority system today, “a seniority system does not necessarily violate the statute when it gives current effect to such rules that operated before the PDA. “[S]eniority systems are afforded special treatment under Title VII[‘s]” § 703(h):
“Notwithstanding any other provision of this subchapter, it shall not be an unlawful employment practice for an employer to apply different standards of compensation, or different terms, conditions, or privileges of employment pursuant to a bona fide seniority . . . system . . . provided that such differences are not the result of an intention to discriminate because of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin . . . .” 42 U. S. C. §2000e–2(h).
“Benefit differentials produced by a bona fide seniority based pension plan are permitted unless they are “the result of an intention to discriminate.” TWA v. Hardison, 432 U. S. 63, 81 (1977). The Court declined to treat pregnancy discrimination differently from race, age or national origin discrimination under § 703(h). The Court noted that it had reached a similar decision regarding the arguably racist calculation of pension benefits before the passage of Title VII in Teamsters v. United States, 431 U. S. 324 (1977). Moreover, because Gilbert had already ruled that such pension plans did not violate Title VII, the Court declined to now reverse that decision and find that the pre-PDA pension plan was discriminatory on its face. (This holding effectively also rejected the plaintiffs’ argument that the pension plan also violated the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.). In addition, because there was nothing in the PDA to indicate that Congress intended a retroactive application of the Act and the general rule is that legislation applies only prospectively, the Court declined to give retroactive affect to the PDA to cover pension calculations made before the passage of the Act. Finally, the Court concluded that it would read § 703(h) out of Title VII to destroy the safe harbor anytime new legislation was enacted.
Justice Ginsburg dissented on the grounds that, among other things, Gilbert had been wrongly decided (based on prior Court of Appeals decisions and EEOC guidelines).
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