SACRAMENTO — The California Senate voted Thursday to bar employers from denying promotions or raises to workers who juggle job duties with the demands of caring for children, sick spouses or aging parents.
One of the first such efforts in the country, the measure would add "familial status" to the categories of discrimination banned by the state's Fair Employment and Housing Act. That law already protects workers from discrimination based on such factors as disabilities, national origin, marital status, age and sexual orientation.
But as the number of working single parents and two-income households has increased, so have complaints that employers act against workers with caregiving responsibilities, experts say.
Nationally, discrimination lawsuits have increased fourfold over the last decade, according to the UC Hastings Center for Worklife Law. Conflicts between work and family are the worst for lower-paid workers -- many of whom are people of color -- because they are least likely to control their schedules and often face inflexible employer rules, such as mandatory overtime, according to a May 23 report by the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Derek Tisinger was passed over for a promotion to captain in the Bakersfield Fire Department after his chief complained that he was taking too many sick days and trading shifts too often in order to raise his three children, of whom he had custody, according to court records.
In one evaluation the chief had written, "I encourage Derek to continue to explore alternative methods of providing child care" so that he could "work, as much as possible, with his assigned crew."
Tisinger won $75,000 from a jury, but an appeals court threw out the award, ruling that California law did not bar employers from taking parental duties into account.
"I wouldn't change it for the world, the time I spent with my kids," Tisinger said Thursday, noting that two are now firefighters and the third just graduated from college. He said he wished the law had been in place when he was passed over in 1995.
"It really sends a bad message to men who want to step up to the plate and do the right thing," he said of California's existing law.
SB 836 by Sen. Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica) passed by a 25-14 vote along party lines, with Democrats in favor. It now goes to the Assembly.
