In personal pensions, discrimination is less direct, based more on ignoring lesbian and gay couples rather than being actively prejudiced against them.
They are currently classed as self-employed independent contractors, or cycling micro-businesses, and therefore lack rights all workers should be able to take for granted: the minimum wage, paid holidays, pensions, protection from discrimination, and trade union rights.
Because women in similar situations had brought lawsuits against other companies, Ameritech went to Federal District Court in Chicago in 1997 seeking a declaration that its use of its old seniority system to calculate eligibility for the new retirement benefits did not violate any of several federal laws dealing with pensions and sex discrimination.
In late 2001, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission jumped in on the agents' side, filing its own suit charging that Allstate violated federal pension and age-discrimination laws when it forced the agents to sign away their benefits and promise not to sue in order to keep working.
The reputation of Brazil's capital markets could be "seriously damaged" by the deal, warned the investment director of Previ, a big pension fund.The risk of discrimination is built into Brazil's stockmarket law, which resembles Italy's more than America's or Britain's.
In AT&T v. Hulteen, No. 07-543, the court will consider whether failing to give credit for pregnancy leaves in pension calculations amounts to employment discrimination.
The workers, who argued that the pension switch constituted illegal age discrimination, won at the trial level, lost on appeal, and were denied a review by the Supreme Court in 2007.
They were barred from holding jobs paid for by the state, they lost their pension rights and many faced discrimination.
Judge Christopher Klein's opinion approving Stockton's bankruptcy petition noted that bondholders could allege "unfair discrimination" if the pension system's payments weren't cut.
