Google laid her off on maternity leave. Now she's suing.

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

That's why they changed it to "Do the right thing [for the shareholders]."
- You mean "Fuck you, getting my full bonus" right?

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.

Newborn family leave needs to be protected federally.

FTFY, why shouldn't we try to have both parents around while we're at it.
- At least 1 month off for both parents immediately after (maybe some weeks before?) birth. Then 1-1 year for each parent.
The fact that it's not protected is all down to America's fear of democratic socialism and workers rights.
- And a religious hatred of women
- I'm hopeful and fearful that in the next four years more people will actually figure out who the real villains are. The cracks are really showing now. I just hope working people realize they are being divided and start to push back and demand basic human rights.

Name the manager that made the call.

Yeah all the employees were living in the bay area, this is going to be a slam dunk in California. Googles going to have some major pain. The manager who made that call is going to find themselves in hot water for sure.

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.

As someone in big tech that has "heard stories", I'm willing to bet that if someone were to somehow dig into tech companies with a performance management policy to promote attrition, they would find that many people that have entered maternity leave also end up being forced to leave or terminated because of their selfish desire to have something in their life other than work.
It is plain illegal in most of Europe
Maybe they secretly liked her and wanted to set her up for life

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/

Google isn’t the only company that does this. It’s very common shitty thing that happens across the US. There needs to be some sort of law that protects parent’s jobs when they come back from leave.

Employers are required to pay out a certain level of comp when someone is on leave, but they could also just pay you a lump sum and cut ties. Then you’re fucked after leave ends.

That would be FMLA
There also needs to be good enforcement. We made a law protecting the jobs of National Guard Soldiers called up for Iraq and Afghanistan and employers just didn't care. Enforcement was extremely lax, basically having to personally pay a lawyer and employers had a million excuses the courts accepted.
- Or you do what we do with the ADA - create new rules and let people sue when they’re violated.
  
  If you make the cases easy to win with clear evidence, then lawyers will throw up billboards asking for business and they won’t charge unless they win.

In California, with a clear delineation of parents versus non parents.

That sound you're hearing is Alphabet's legal department smacking their head on their desk.

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

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

Yeah fuck google but lets not let the "leaders of the free world Ltd." Off the hook. It is this way because of piss poor people governing to a piss poor standard and a people frothing at the kouth about the toilets.

Can the court decide to reverse the layoff?

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?