CNN Reporter Accuses Time Warner of Discriminating Against Biological Dads

According to maternal disability law, a woman who gives vaginal birth typically has six weeks of disability leave while a woman who gets a caesarean procedure usually gets eight.

Justine Lisser, a spokeswoman for the EEOC, said the “crucial issue” in a hypothetical case of a man denied paid leave for caregiving is the nature of the leave for women.

If the leave is specifically to recover from the medical condition of pregnancy, it is not discriminatory to deny the same amount of leave to men for caregiving, Lisser said.

“So, in other words, if any worker is allowed up to eight weeks of paid leave for temporary medical conditions, a woman might be given this amount of leave for pregnancy and childbirth-related medical conditions, while a man could not benefit from the same leave for caregiving because it is not a temporary medical condition,” Lisser said.

He could, however, get the same amount of leave if he had heart bypass surgery, for example, according to Lisser.

“In neither case is the leave generally for caregiving of other people,” she said.

Williams said cases like that of Levs is “a tug of war” between younger and older men about what it means to be a “good” father.

“Older men never took leave and they think they’re good fathers, and they don’t know why younger men are making things complicated,” she said.

Speaking generally, besides maternal disability, you can’t give special leave to people other than women who have given birth, says Williams.

“Beyond that, you have to treat women and men the same,” Williams said. “And that’s my understanding of the law.”

Article Appeared @http://abcnews.go.com/Business/time-warner-accused-refusing-longer-paid-family-leave/story?id=20757792&singlePage=true

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