A former Netflix employee is suing the company after she was allegedly fired for being pregnant.
What happened, exactly? Well, according to the suit, when Zarak informed Ramos of her pregnancy, he ended up reducing her role, “removed her from communications, excluded her from meetings, and mocked her appearance.” When Zarak voiced complaints about the alleged treatment to her HR department, “they told her to go back to Ramos and discuss the situation.” The department also informed Ramos that she had complained about him.
It’s important to note that pregnancy discrimination, like other forms of discrimination, is illegal. Under federal law, businesses cannot “fire, demote, refuse to hire, or otherwise punish a woman for being pregnant” if the business has more than 15 employees. Netflix is a giant company, which means it violated the law if it turns out Zarak was actually discriminated against due to her pregnancy. It should also be noted that federal law doesn’t protect pregnant employees, or any other employee for that matter, if the company is laying off workers or firing workers for performance-based issues.
Additionally, if Zarak’s allegations are true, her encounter with the HR department should raise some questions. Typically, when employees raise concerns with HR, an investigation follows. Instead, Zarak was allegedly told to discuss the matter with Ramos and sort it out on her own. That’s not typical HR behavior and begs the question as to whether there may be more to the story.