Hulteen

BACKGROUND

Noreen Hulteen, Eleanora Collet, Linda Porter, and Eliza- beth Snyder were long-time employees of Pacific Telephone and Telegraph (PT&T), a Bell System operating company that was transferred to AT&T when the former Bell system was broken up in 1984. They continued to work for AT&T there- after. PT&T and, in turn, AT&T maintain a “Net Credited Service” (NCS) date for all employees. The NCS date consists of an employee’s original hire date and adjustments for peri- ods during which no service credit is accrued. Periods of leave or other breaks in service that are not credited result in a later NCS date than the employee’s original hire date. The NCS date is used to determine benefits for which employees may qualify, including the amount of pension payments, eligi- bility for early retirement, qualification for voluntary termina- HULTEEN v. AT&T CORP. 2295 tion packages, job bidding, shift preferences, and seniority for layoffs.

Hulteen, Collet, Porter and Snyder took pregnancy leaves between 1968 and 1976. Before August 7, 1977, PT&T treated pregnancy leaves as personal leaves for which the employee was given a maximum of 30 days of service credit; at…