By Robert MacMillan
1 hour, 5 minutes ago
According to multiple media reports and accounts from
current and former employees, the work place is intense and
unusually demanding, compared with other jobs.
Such schedules are hardly unusual in Corporate America, but
Bloomberg, which prides itself on being different, has not run
itself like other multibillion-dollar companies.
That focus has powered meteoric growth at the business
since its founding in the early 1980s. But it has bruised some
current and former staff along the way due to what many have
described as the high demand on their time.
The changes "ensure that with our growth, we will continue
to be a creative and innovative place," spokeswoman Judith
Czelusniak wrote in an e-mail, when asked about the new system.
Bloomberg employees contacted by Reuters declined to
comment on the changes.
The shifting comes as Bloomberg prepares to defend itself
against a lawsuit filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission (EEOC) charging discrimination against pregnant
women and new mothers.
The lawsuit accuses Bloomberg of discriminating against
women by decreasing their pay, demoting them, diminishing their
job duties and excluding them from other opportunities when
they became pregnant and when they returned from maternity
leave.
Some women were told, "You are not committed," and "You do
not want to be here" because of new demands on their time as
parents, according to the suit.
The suit, filed in September, includes more than 70 current
and former female Bloomberg employees. The number of people
eligible for the lawsuit could rise to near 500, said Raechel
Adams, an EEOC senior trial attorney.
Czelusniak declined to comment on further specifics of the
lawsuit. Bloomberg has previously denied the charges in the
lawsuit.
Barring a settlement, the case likely will not go to trial
until 2009 as the EEOC and Bloomberg gather evidence during the
discovery process, Adams said.
She declined to say whether she thought there was a
connection between the flexible work arrangement, as Bloomberg
calls the changes, and the lawsuit.
Changing the workplace policy probably has more to do with
problems the company discovered after being sued, according to
Stanford Law School Professor Deborah Rhode.
"Oftentimes what emerges from a lawsuit are symptoms of
broader structural problems in company policies regarding
part-time workplace flexibility," she said. "There's ample
evidence to suggest that for both men and women they're
absolutely right about the benefits of increased flexibility."
(Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)
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