MATERNITY LEAVE LEGISLATION

WHEREAS, for many years the practice and policies of boards of education for school employees who were pregnant was to force them to resign or to begin maternity leaves of absence many months before actual confinement for birth; and

WHEREAS, many of these school employees desired to continue in their assignments and were physically able to do so for periods of time which are common today; and

WHEREAS, the policies of several school districts disallowed these school employees from resuming their professional careers until after the school employee's child was one year of age as of September 1 of the succeeding school year; and

WHEREAS, these women lost the financial and other benefit rewards of a continuing regular assignment; and

WHEREAS, these school employees, because of these discriminatory practices, lost days, months, and even years of service credit which would have been applied to their retirement; and

WHEREAS, these school employees were discriminated against solely because they were women:

RESOLVED, that AFT institutes, and actively seeks to implement in its legislative programs, a bill that would allow school employees to buy back retirement credit for the time period that school board policies prohibited them from working.