New York City officials on July 18 agreed to pay $20.8 million to resolve allegations the city discriminated against city-employed registered nurses and midwives because they are women, according to the Justice Department.
The proposed settlement stems from allegations made in a decade-long federal lawsuit. The lawsuit stated the city did not recognize the "physically taxing" work of the predominantly female registered nurses and midwives, but it did recognize other predominantly male occupations, such as motor vehicle dispatcher, window cleaner and plumbers, as "physically taxing."
The Justice Department said city employees in the predominantly male "physically taxing" positions got to retire with full pensions as early as age 50, while the workers in the predominantly female jobs weren't allowed to do so until age 55 or 57.
Over the last 50 years, the city has allowed its employees with 25 years of service and working in jobs it deemed "physically taxing" to retire with full pensions as early as age 50, according to the Justice Department. But registered nurses and midwives were not recognized by the city as working in "physically taxing" positions, while various predominantly male populations were.
In 2004 the New York State Nurses Association, which represents city-employed registered nurses and midwives, began asking the city to give the same options for its members as those in the predominantly male occupations. The union's request was denied three times, most recently in 2008.
In July 2008, the union and several nurses filed a formal charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging discrimination by the city. Ultimately, the EEOC sided with the union and nurses, finding "reason to believe that the city had discriminated against the nurses when it failed to recognize registered nurse and midwife occupational titles as 'physically taxing' in 1968, and again when NYSNA made its requests in 2004, 2006 and 2008," according to the Justice Department, which took on the case after the EEOC.
The proposed settlement affects more than 1,600 registered nurses and hundreds of midwives hired by the city between Sept. 15, 1965, and March 31, 2012. Each affected individual is slated to receive $1,000 to $99,000, based on how many years they worked and how much earlier they would have been eligible to retire, according to the Justice Department, which said those payments are subject to court approval.
The Justice Department said the city also agreed to pay attorney fees and an additional $100,000 to the four nurses who initiated the 2008 EEOC complaint.
The union praised the settlement.
"The settlement is a victory for all nurses and a testament to the hard, physically demanding work that nurses do every day for those in need of care in the public hospitals. It is an acknowledgement of the injustice done to our sister and brother nurses who were denied recognition of the difficult nature of our work, all based on the discriminatory perception that nurses are mostly women and women’s work isn’t physically strenuous," said Anne Bové, NYSNA board member and one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
Acting Assistant Attorney General John Gore said the settlement "will provide significant relief to a class of female nurses and midwives employed by the City of New York who were harmed by the city's discriminatory employment practices."
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