Bloomberg Accused of Sexual Discrimination
Recently, Mayor Michael Bloomberg was deposed in a class-action discrimination lawsuit. Bloomberg L.P. is the defendant in a class action suit alleging gender discrimination and bias. Previously, the suit only involved four female employees who were demoted or had their pay cut after announcing their maternity leave. Four women were the subject of a previous EEOC complaint brought in New Jersey, where a similar bias suit was dismissed. However, this action has been brought by the EEOC in the Southern District of New York. In addition, the EEOC identified another 450 women with similar complaints related to their maternity leave.
In the EEOC complaint, the women allege that they were replaced by junior-level male employees when on maternity leave. Also, once they returned from maternity leave, they would not resume previous high-level positions, instead being placed into entry-level jobs. Other managers would exclude these women from management meetings as well as stating “You don’t want to be here” and that these women were “not committed”. This pattern of discrimination was especially worse for women with multiple children, as supervisors would be openly hostile to women with multiple maternity leaves. It is expected that the case will proceed past depositions in the fall.
