Dads didn’t get full parental leave in Tampa, feds say. Now city will pay $300,000

The city of Tampa didn’t allow male employees to take the same amount of parental leave offered to women because the fathers didn’t deliver their babies, according to a lawsuit filed by the Justice Department.

Tampa designated fathers as “secondary caregivers” and granted them 80 hours of paternity leave while female city employees, considered “primary caregivers,” were allowed 340 hours of maternity leave, a complaint says. The policy was in place from February 2017 to December 2018, according to officials.

Now, the city has agreed to settle the Justice Department’s lawsuit and will pay male employees $300,000, officials announced in a Dec. 21 news release.

Tampa declined a request for comment from McClatchy News on Dec. 22, according to city communications director Adam Smith.

“Parental leave policies should not reflect presumptions or stereotypes about gender roles,” Tamra Schweiberger, the director of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s Tampa field office, said in a statement.

“When it comes to providing leave for bonding with a new child or flexibility in returning to work from that leave, mothers and fathers should be treated equally,” Schweiberger added.

What led to the lawsuit?

In April 2018, a Tampa parking enforcement supervisor filed a charge of discrimination with the EEOC, according to the complaint.

He accused Tampa of discriminating against him — and other male employees — when it denied his request for parental leave, the complaint shows.

The employee’s wife had experienced complications while pregnant in 2017 — leading to her doctor writing a note, saying she “would not be able to be primary caregiver several weeks after the birth” and “would need care herself,” according to the complaint.

As a result, the Tampa employee requested primary caregiver leave and provided the doctor’s note, according to the complaint.

However, Tampa’s human resource director told him “the purpose of (primary caregiver leave) was for the mother to bond with her baby,” and his request was denied, the complaint says.

The couple hired someone else to care for their baby boy when he returned to work, according to the complaint.

“Had he been approved for primary caregiver leave, or been assured that he would be approved, (he) would have stayed out longer to care for his son,” the complaint says.

Tampa has agreed to pay this employee $60,000 as part of the settlement agreement, according to the consent decree that needs to be approved by the court.

According to the Justice Department, about 150 male employees were denied the full amount of leave that female employees could take under Tampa’s policy.

The city will also pay $240,000 to other employees named in the consent decree after the government determines whether they are eligible for relief, according to the filing.

Tampa maintains it didn’t discriminate against male employees with its parental leave policy, according to the city’s resolution provided to McClatchy News by Smith.

However, it agreed to the consent decree’s terms to avoid further litigation, the resolution says.

The city will also “credit up to 240 hours of additional leave time to each of the male employees who would have taken primary caregiver parental leave if it had been available to them under the policy,” the Justice Department said.

As part of the settlement, Tampa will establish new policies, including a parental leave policy, and will train employees on the policies, according to officials.

“This agreement sends a clear message that in providing paid or unpaid parental leave, employers must guarantee that those benefits are provided without reliance on presumptions about which parent can be the primary caregiver,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke, of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said in the release.

Company refused to hire 49-year-old due to his age, feds say. Now he’s owed $90,000

Dollar General fires woman for ‘health reasons’ — pregnancy, feds say. Now it must pay

Florida worker wanted religious exemption from COVID shot. She was fired instead, feds say