My company laid off 2 people whilst on maternity leave and being a mostly remote company, my coworkers were in different states.

The one in California sued and got a decent amount from the lawsuit. However the one in Texas didn’t see as bright of an ending.

Maternity leave needs to be protected federally, as right now I think only a handful of states have laws protecting employees on maternity leave.

They wonder why birth rate is going down. My partner doesn't even get parental leave.

According to the lawsuit, five of the seven people laid off from Byrne’s team were on, had recently requested or used parental leave. The six employees who kept their jobs — including the worker who took over Byrne’s duties — didn’t have young children, medical conditions or upcoming leaves, the complaint says.

Do~~n’t~~ be evil

You have to be a brain dead manager to approve a termination while someone is 1) on maternity leave or 2) had filed a worker’s comp claim recently. I mean, it’s asking for a lawsuit you can’t win.

This is really fucked up. Do you have to weigh being with your infant, who needs you, with keeping your job? Google can go fuck itself

Name the manager that made the call.

Wow and its not even the first time:

It isn’t the first accusation Google’s seen regarding treatment of pregnancy; a high-profile story in 2019 saw a memo go viral within the company alleging discrimination against a pregnant employee and retaliation when she brought the issue to HR.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/google-employee-alleges-discrimination-against-pregnant-women-in-viral-memo/

The company denies any wrongdoing

Of cause it does.

Ugh can't believe I'm guna do this but it's understandable to layoff an employee not knowing they're on maternity/paternity leave since the pandemic. I am only speaking for NY State, and know it's different state by state. After covid they did the paid family leave and maternity leave changes that I thought were done at federal level but could be wrong. If the woman was laid off SEVEN MONTHS into her maternity leave then she was using googles maternity leave plus paid family leave which is federal, plus whatever Cali gives you for time off. Correct me if Im wrong but no state or company is giving 7 months paid maternity leave.

What i was getting at tho is, with some of these maternity/paternity leaves, you can disperse them over a couple months. What this means to an HR dept is, an employee could go thru the company's allowed time off, then use the states, then use the fed.

I know it's google and I'm speaking from the experience of running a small business but HR is making "i's" get dotted, paychecks don't bounce and state and federal paperwork is files for all scenarios that demand it. I could see it being very easy to lay someone off not realizing they are on maternity leave and not just out on disability or sick leave.

I mean who the fuck takes 7 months off for a fuckin baby anyway🤣 what are you guna do jump back into the routine like you didn't miss a step so they layoff your fill in? I looked it up and according to google themself they just increased their l3ave to 24 weeks. So she spent the maternity leave and was prolly using vacation or the other options. In which case why would google be liable?