If you are a professor at The University of Memphis and plan on getting pregnant, don't plan on receiving any paid maternity leave.
The U of M joined together Tennessee state law and Tennessee Board of Regents guidelines to establish its maternity leave policy. Following guidelines as a state institution, The U of M does not pay for maternity leave.
Hearing the complaints from pregnant employees, Amanda Clarkson, director of employee benefits, looks to the policy for understanding.
"They're frustrated that their leave is unpaid," Clarkson said. "Because we are a state institution, we go by the TBR. That's what we have to follow."
According to Tennessee Maternity Law, an employer must provide up to four months of unpaid leave to regular employed employees due to a birth of a child. She may use annual leave or leave without pay for the remainder of the maternity leave.
However, the act does not require the employer to pay the pregnant employees.
Faculty at The University of Memphis - instructors and professors - may use up to six weeks of accumulated paid sick leave. However, staff - administrators and nonfaculty members - can receive 12 weeks of paid maternity leave by combining their sick leave and vacation time.
Faculty members do not get vacation time.
"There's no way faculty can take 12 weeks with pay," said Lynda Sagrestano, director of the Center for Research on Women. "Staff members are able to take 12 weeks of paid maternity leave."
While faculty members are not granted vacation time like staff members, their work schedule is shorter because it follows the academic year.
"Faculty and staff schedules are different," Clarkson said. "Staff members are here 12 months a year."
Once faculty members use their earned sick leave, they must decide whether to go back to work or continue unpaid maternity leave, inevitably paying The University in order to keep their benefits.
"They have to be responsible for the deductions that come out of their checks," Clarkson said. "They have to pay 100 percent of their benefits after the allowed four months leave."
Although the policy does not tolerate discrimination of female employees, some employees are afraid to announce they are pregnant.
"Some faculty members with (chairpersons who are unsympathetic) to mothers are afraid to tell the chair they are pregnant," Sagrestano said. "They're worried about whether or not the will have a course reduction."
Guidelines governing how a pregnant employee must be handled by department chairs are nonexistent, Clarkson said.
"There's no mechanism in place for how a chairman covers courses," Sagrestano said.
Without a policy legislating, the chair of the department chooses how to handle each specific case.
However, during the four months, The University cannot fire the pregnant worker.
"If you're eligible under FMLA (Federal maternity Leave Act), a department chair cannot discriminate," Clarkson said.
The 47 U of M employees who have filed for maternity leave since June 2007 will experience their leave differently depending upon their title at The University.
"It's a discriminatory policy, faculty versus staff," Sagrestano said. "It can be fixed."
Expecting her baby this month, Romar Rodriguez, teaching assistant in the language department, misses her country's policy on maternity leave.
"In Venezuela, you get three months of leave," Rodriguez said. "You get three months before you have the baby and three months after you have the baby and it's paid."
Rodriguez will finish her assistantship this semester and will take the next semester off.
Still, Rodriguez considers herself lucky.
"I wonder what would have happened if I got pregnant during the beginning of my semester," she said. "Who would teach my classes? And if I didn't work for six weeks, I probably wouldn't get paid."
