Recent Developments from Around the States

Verizon Wireless Communications will pay certain former female employees a total of $48.9 million for pension service credits wrongfully denied while on pregnancy and maternity leave as a result of an Equal Opportunity Commission (EEOC) consent decree entered in 2002. EEOC v. Bell Atlantic, S.D.N.Y., No. 97 Civ. 6723, final report on consent decree submitted 6/5/06).

The consent decree resolved two pregnancy discrimination lawsuits filed by the EEOC in 1997 and 1999 on behalf of some 12,300 current and former female employees denied pension credit for their pregnancy and maternity leaves by NYNEX and Bell Atlantic, two of Verizon's predecessor companies. The lawsuits alleged violations of Title VII and the Equal Pay Act stemming from the companies' denial of service credits affecting pension eligibility to their female employees. One suit had been filed by the Communication Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers on behalf of the organizations' female unionized employees, and the other was brought by the EEOC on behalf of female management employees. The final consent decree, which was submitted to and approved by Judge Denny Chin of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, covered all female employees of the two companies located in 13 eastern states and the District of Columbia who took either pregnancy- or maternity-related leaves of absence between July 2, 1965 and April 28, 1979, and/or leaves of absence to care for a newborn between July 2, 1965 and Dec. 31, 1983. In accordance with the decree, the employees were granted between 2 and 7 weeks of additional service credits per pregnancy, depending on when their leave was taken, and some were given enhanced service credit adjustments if they were denied early retirement incentive opportunities as a result of the companies' misconduct.