Got Pregnant, Got Fired (Updated)

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The bad PR for NY1 continues to roll in.

The NY Daily News writes that two former on-air journalists at NY1 charged in a new lawsuit Wednesday that getting pregnant was a career ender at the 24-hour news network.

Thalia Perez and Michelle Greenstein allege in the suit filed in Manhattan Federal Court that they were denied opportunities and ultimately fired because they were over 40 years old and either pregnant or just back from maternity leave.

Perez, who covered local stories, says she was fired in October 2017 while in her third trimester after complaining that she’d been denied opportunities because was pregnant. Her former colleague, Michelle Greenstein, says she was canned in December 2017, three months after being told by a supervisor, Melissa Rabinovich, she couldn’t handle additional anchoring work because she was a new mom.

“I did not think you could handle the flexibility of hours because you’re a new mom and you have a lot going on . . . you should stay home and enjoy time with your baby," Rabinovich allegedly said.

Greenstein, who covered traffic, said she was inspired to sue by an earlier gender and age discrimination lawsuit filed by five prominent anchorwomen at the network.

“As a new mother, being told that my decision to have children would render me disposable to NY1 was extremely demoralizing,” Greenstein explained.

UPDATE: Charter released this statement to FTVLive: “As we’ve said, we take these kinds of allegations seriously, but this lawsuit has no merit. These two women only provided fill-in work. A few years ago, we decided to employ more full-time on-air employees. At that time, we no longer had a need to call them for shifts. Our records show that neither Michelle nor Thalia applied for any open position.”