Question: if my employer agrees to a maternity leave that is above and beyond what NY DIS. entitles - are they setting a precedence that they have to give for anyone that claims disability?

Specifically, here's the situation. NY allows 6 weeks paid leave at 50% of what you make. That's crap for me!

My employer doesn't have a 'maternity leave' in place - I'm probably the first one that has worked for them that actually needed it. So they asked me what I wanted and my response was ' 8 weeks paid leave at my rate of pay' The preliminary answer was that if they granted my 8 week/paid request, then anyone that had claimed disability would be entitled to the same 8wk/paid. I don't think that's right, but I don't know who to ask to get straight answers.

Anyone know??

It's certainly possible that doing that for you will cause your employer legal problems. You're a pregnant female - what about the male who needs eight weeks off for back surgery who doesn't get full pay for those eight weeks? I expect he'd be hollering gender discrimination when he's not offered the same benefit and rightly so.

Your employer is right. If they do it for you, they have to do it for everyone if they don't want some significant problems down the road. The law entitles you to the same treatment any other employee who is medically disabled for a period of time receives from their employer - no more, no less.

Thank you for your prompt answer.........and my follow up question is this.

How are companies able to offer a Maternity Leave in their benefits? And under what circumstances would that translate to other employees? (ie, your male scenario)

To the best of my knowledge, only one state (California) requires that employers offer a PAID maternity leave, and I'd have to check whether even CA requires it in all circumstances.

Some, but by no means all, states require that an employer offer up to x weeks of maternity leave. For example, in my state, any employer with 6 or more employees MUST offer up to eight weeks of UNPAID maternity leave. Employers in states with such laws must comply with them.

Employers in states where no such law exists need only see that a pregnant employee is offered exactly the same as an employee who is not pregnant. In the situation Beth hypothesized, whatever leave time the pregnant woman would receive would have to be offered to a similarly situated man with back problems, and vice versa. The employer could offer whatever amount of time they chose to; four weeks, four months, two weeks, a year; paid; unpaid; but all similarly situated employees would be have to be subject to the same policy, regardless of gender or reason for absence.

Note that I said similarly situated employees. An employee who was eligible for FMLA might be eligible for more time than an employee who is not eligible. A vice president might be eligible for more time than a receptionist. But having determined what classes of employees were eligible for which benefits, all employees in that class would have to be offered the same benefit.

How are companies able to offer a Maternity Leave in their benefits? I can't speak for all employers of course but generally speaking, they don't. Employers offer medical leave, personal leave, parental leave, and so on. Many employees may refer to certain types of leave as "maternity leave" but that's not accurate.

An employer would be foolish to segregate pregnancy as a special category of leave.

Thank you both for your responses. I've stated my 'case' as it were to my employers, I'm just waiting to see what the decision is. Should be interesting.

You will be extremely lucky if you get what you've asked for. Few employers would offer that.