Supreme Court crushes maternity leave law

This is yet another indication that the U.S. Supreme Court is just making things up as it's going along.

Today, the court dashed a longstanding law on maternity leave to smithereens. The Supremes ruled that the 1978 Pregnancy Discrimination Act - which is supposed to bar companies from treating maternity leave differently from other medical leaves - doesn't apply to women who took maternity leave before 1978 who are trying to have it counted towards their pensions.

Today's ruling is an activist one, and it has no legal basis. Even the Ninth Circuit had already ruled that the law applies to maternity leaves from before 1978. But the Supreme Court has now overruled the lower courts - for reasons so murky that we're still sorting them out.

The case arose when 4 employees of AT&T sued to have their maternity leave count towards their pensions. But AT&T fought these 4 women tooth and nail.

If AT&T thinks long-ago maternity leaves shouldn't count retroactively, then why does the communications giant support retroactive immunity for telcoms that conspired with the Bush regime in the wiretap scandal? Little bit of hypocrisy there, don't you think?

Naturally, the Bush regime had urged the Supreme Court to rule in AT&T's favor in the maternity leave case.

Perhaps even more astounding is that AT&T continues to discriminate by not counting the maternity leaves from before 1978. The company seems to remain unrepentant for that.

(Source: http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/retirement/2009-05-18-maternityleave_N.htm)