Konami Employee Fights Discrimination

[kawligia]

Ok. In response to some private messages, I dusted off some old notes on the area. This is basic summary info which may be incomplete and possibly even inaccurate and is not to be taken as legal advice. If you or someone you know is involved in this kind of situation, you should contact a practicing lawyer in your area regardless of what it says here.

In the US, if an employer has employed 50 or more employees over the course of the last year AND the employee in question has worked a full year for that employer AND worked 1250 hours for that employer during that year, the employer is required to give a certain number of weeks unpaid leave for maternity (or paternity as long as you are actually taking care of the child/mother and not going on vacation).

When that employee comes back, the employer has to restore the employee to the same OR SIMILAR job. However, if that person is a "key employee," the employer can hire a replacement and does not have to restore the employee to the old job. This exception is intended for special or high-level employees (usually with income in the top 10% of the company) that the company cannot do without during the leave period.

So it looks like the issue would turn on whether her position was a "key" position that they employer had to fill quickly. If she had high-level international responsibilities, then it MIGHT be a "key" position.

Of course this isn't even being brought in a US court anyway. :\

 

[MrPop]

Well it just makes me mad when i hear something like this,i mean ok if you have been wronged,or discriminated,but lately any woman that gets fired/demoted even if its her own fault,claims sexual discrimination to get what she wants. I mean if she really felt discriminated she would want her old job back but she wants 350 000$ (ish) which is greedy and idiotic. What kind of a society is it where people can sue a successful company for tens of millions of dollars for something trivial or silly.

Well I think it was unjustified to demote her for that reason. Konami isn't the parent of the child so I don't think they should decide how it is being brought up >.>

 

[MrPop]

Well it just makes me mad when i hear something like this,i mean ok if you have been wronged,or discriminated,but lately any woman that gets fired/demoted even if its her own fault,claims sexual discrimination to get what she wants. I mean if she really felt discriminated she would want her old job back but she wants 350 000$ (ish) which is greedy and idiotic. What kind of a society is it where people can sue a successful company for tens of millions of dollars for something trivial or silly.

Well I think it was unjustified to demote her for that reason. Konami isn't the parent of the child so I don't think they should decide how it is being brought up >.>

Uh well you dont really know if they demoted her because she had a child,maybe she was a bad worker and someone worked harder? and i fail to see the part where Konami decides how the child should be brought up,they are simply the employers of the mother,lately people will make any excuse to get money,racial/sexual/homophobic discrimination regardless of there being any signs of it

Well if she was a bad worker it's the fact that Konami used the excuse that by dropping her salary by $2000 per month the mother would be able to raise the child better.

Konami stated in in-trail meetings that her position at the company had been changed in consideration of creating a better environment for raising a child

It is discrimination of a form. Imagine if you had a child and your employer lowered your salary so you could 'create a better environment for raising a child'. You'd be pretty pissed off too.

 

[sneakypenguin]

Heh, I'm of the view that womens jobs shouldn't be (required to be)protected during maternity leave. If I owned a company I would definitely have it but I can see how some would find it not worth the hassle.

"Soo you want us to hang on to your job for 6 months and then let you back at the end.... yeah we're just gonna hire this person that isn't gonna cost us the money."

 

[angryscotsman93]

Hey, nobody likes losing money, no matter the reason.

Quite true, my drunken undead compadre.

 

[angryscotsman93]

She would've sued them even if they demoted her with a more reasonable explanation, because that's how it works.

That may be so, but is irrelevant in this case, because they didn't even offer such an explanation. They've quite plainly stated that this was done because of her child.

I'm with Max on this one.

Agreed. Regardless of the supposedly kind motives of this act, it was done without her consent or notification, and did cost her money. So really, in a completely non-Double Entendre manner, Konami really did pull a Dick Move on this one.

 

[Mackinator]

If they really were being altruistic (which is, you know, extremely unlikely) they'd have offered.
Such is the polite thing to do.

Indeed. She has a strong case, but her vs. Konami will be a challenge as they'll probably "lawyer her up".

 

[angryscotsman93]

I suspect there's more to this story than simple discrimination, seeing as Konami have given her a completely different job.

Before her maternity leave her job was to travel around the world to negotiate licenses with foreign football teams and foreign footballers, for the Pro Evolution Soccer games.

Seeing as the Pro Evo games have rather notoriously featured made up names for a lot of the teams and players they'd been unable to get the licenses for and in quite a few cases they'd had to omit entire teams and leagues, maybe she just wasn't very good at her job.

Konami may have just used the maternity and baby reason as a face saving excuse to change her position and give her old job to someone who'd be more successful at negotiating the licenses.

Rather than fire her for being crap, they may have thought it was better to give her a less important, domestic job in Japan, seeing as she's just had a baby and the Japanese government is encouraging working women to have babies to help with their population crisis.

I get the impression that 'face' and appearance is quite important in Japanese business, and it wouldn't be good form for Konami to fire a woman who's just had a baby, even if they had found someone who was better at her job, so instead they changed her job.

Also, when it was her job negotiate with international football teams, which are usually controlled by middle age, 'old fashioned' businessmen, maybe Konami felt that a new mother wouldn't be their best representative, and someone who wasn't a new mother would have a better bargaining position.

Well that's my theory, you don't have to like it or agree with it, but I do believe that the fact she was responsible for negotiating licenses with international football teams had more to do with her 'demotion' than is being reported.

Like it or not, lots of these businesses are still 'old boys' clubs.

Hmmm. You make a lotta sense, man. Perhaps she wasn't the best at her job- I'm not saying she was crap, but who knows? And of course, seeing as how she HAD just given birth, simply firing her cold turkey would leave a horrible burden on their public affairs department.

Of course, even this shit sent them spiralling.

 

[Mackinator]

If she sucked, they should've just told her.

Well, they can't give that reason now, even if that was the reason.
I suppose that is a worse reason than the one they gave but... such is life.

 

[Mackinator]

Life is a series of extremely depressing events that eventually lead to death.

We have a pessimist here!
The glass is both half full and half empty!
Agreed? Ok.

 

[Lord_Ascendant]

tricksy hobbitses they stole the precious!!

I mean *ahem* yeah this is a slippery slope

 

[SilentHunter7]

I can see how cutting someone's salary by $24,000 helps them to raise a child.

 

[squid5580]

Who are we Westerners to try and impose our beliefs onto thier culture or laws?

It may not be our culture, but SHE IS Japanese. SHE IS fighting to change her culture. And we can understand and sympathize with her since our country faced this not that long ago and continues to have fall-out.

http://www.losangelesemploymentlawyerblog.com/2009/02/former_walmart_pharmacist_sues.html

Sorry but that story doesn't mean much. How long did she work there vs how long were the men there? Maybe the men had better crediantals or negotiated better than her. I have worked with alot of women who made more than me maybe I should sue. Although I would have to go through the bar exam first because no lawyer would touch that with a 10ft pole.

And Idon't see why a culture that says look you just had a kid maybe travelling the world isn't such a good idea for you is bad. Or maybe the person who they hired to do her job while she was on maternity leave is better at it than she is. There are so many factors here that reducing it to sexism is shortsighted and just plain wrong. Especially when the only information we know is just a few simple paragraphs on the internet (no offense to the Escapist News Team).

 

[Lord Beautiful]

If they really were being altruistic (which is, you know, extremely unlikely) they'd have offered.
Such is the polite thing to do.

Pretty much this.