There are 2.8 million pregnant women per year in the United States, and about 80% of all first-time pregnant women keep working until their final month of pregnancy. The policy around workplace rights for pregnant women seeks to address and resolve issues associated with maternity terms for employees.
The recognition of pregnancy rights at the workplace is one way to allow assurance of the financial state of pregnant workers. It has become very common to support the principles of fair rights at the place of work. It is necessary for the anti-discrimination and labor legislation of the United States to stipulate provisions for the protection of pregnant women’s interests.
Workplace discrimination occurs when an individual is treated unfairly or looked down upon based on their race, gender, religion, age, disability, or sexual orientation. Such cases bring controversy and heated discussions of employees’ qualities and how they matter during the hiring process.
Let’s examine what rights are given to workers, especially if they are pregnant or have just given birth.
The Four Federal Laws That Apply Simultaneously
Pregnancy at work is covered by four federal laws, each one dealing with slightly different angles of employment. They overlap each other, and the rule followed is that the law that applies offers the most protection takes center stage.
Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA)
The Pregnancy Discrimination Act, which was proposed in 1978, was one of the biggest advances to the Civil Rights Act. This legislation was designed to combat discrimination in women’s employment on grounds of pregnancy, childbirth, and care of children. Discrimination can manifest in the form of things like hiring, letting go, pay, moving up, job assignments, training, and benefits.
The PDA also means pregnant employees have to be handled the same as other employees who are pretty similar in terms of ability or inability to work.
Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA)
The Pregnancy Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) was signed into law on June 10, 2023. It is applicable to employers with fifteen or more employees. The PWFA legislation requires all employers to offer reasonable adjustments to pregnant and postpartum women. The administrative rules were finalized on June 18, 2024.
This law is somewhat dissimilar to PDA in that while the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act makes no demand for comparison with other workers, it only calls for the requirement of accommodation. Some of the conditions covered by PWFA include uncomplicated pregnancies, postpartum depression, lactation, miscarriage, edema, placenta previa, and a few other conditions.
According to Los Angeles pregnancy discrimination lawyer Emanuel Shirazi, all employees enjoy protection at both the state and federal levels. It may come as a big surprise for some of the employees but in the United States there are specific laws protecting pregnant employees in their workplaces.
Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA)
The Family and Medical Leave Act, or FMLA for short, is a law that is facilitated by the U.S. Department of Labor. This act grants a request for any covered employees to take about twelve weeks of leave per year. The leave can be taken for established reasons such as pregnancy, childbirth, adoption, foster care, and other circumstances that prevent the employee from performing their daily job.
This statute affects those entities that have a total of 50 employees or more. To be eligible for the statute, the employee must have served for at least twelve months prior to the period in question and has to have had 1,250 working hours in the past 12 months.
An employee on FMLA leave should still be provided health insurance coverage. The employee has the right to return to the same job or to a position that is similar in meaning and compensation after the FMLA period expires.
PUMP Act
The Providing Urgent Maternal Protections for Nursing Mothers Act (PUMP Act), which is enforced by the United States Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division, asks most employers to give reasonable break time and a private space for women employees. The space allows female employees to collect or administer breast milk feeding following the baby’s birth. You can check DOL’s PUMP Act resources for more information.
What Accommodations You Can Request Under the PWFA
The PWFA requires employers to use an interactive process to determine reasonable accommodation measures. The worker simply informs their employer of their need for specific accommodations.
The EEOC also notes four concrete accommodations that employers have to provide without demanding medical paperwork:
- Additional restroom breaks
- Food and drink breaks
- The option to keep a water bottle or food close by and easy to reach
- The option to sit or stand when needed
Reasonable accommodations might consist of reduced lifting, flexibility in scheduling for prenatal appointments, temporary assignment to lighter duty, closer parking, or temporary elimination of particular job duties. In accordance with the PWFA, an employer is usually prohibited from requiring that an individual on family medical leave cease work.
The PWFA Covers More Than a Current Pregnancy
The majority of employees understand that the pregnancy discrimination laws take effect when there’s confirmation of pregnancy. Most individuals lack knowledge regarding the fact that the PWFA protections are even more expansive than they ever thought.
A range of legal provisions have been put in place with respect to maternity, delivery and other reproductive health matters related to pregnancy. These provisions also include, but are not limited to abortion, stillbirth, postnatal depression, infertility, antenatal problems and lactation. With the implementation of PWFA, women employees, including those who have gone through pregnancy, will continue to receive protection in the future.
The scope of the PWFA matters a lot. It means PWFA is not some tight protection only connected to the clearly visible phase of pregnancy. It reaches across the whole arc of circumstances tied to the childbearing process, and it still counts no matter what happens with the pregnancy outcome.
Employers who deny accommodations on the basis that someone is no longer currently pregnant may be taking away protections that are still in place under the law.
What to Do If Your Rights Are Violated
Taking retaliation for requesting or using an accommodation under the PWFA, or taking FMLA leave, or just asserting your rights under the PDA is seen as unlawful.
Besides dismissals, there are numerous other examples of retaliation. Retaliatory actions may include degradation, less work time, reassigning duties, and other measures taken following a worker’s exercise of a certain right.
If you have good reason to suspect that your rights were infringed, it is recommended that the following course of actions be taken:
- Record the order of events precisely. Document details such as the precise time of each demand, the different individuals involved, and what each of them said to you, be it verbally or not.
- Carefully handle all your correspondence, which should include emails and text messages.
- File a charge with the EEOC within 180 days of such an occurrence, or 300 days in case your state has a separate equal employment enforcement entity. The charge can be filed directly through the EEOC Public Portal at publicportal.eeoc.gov for those who wish to know how the process works.
Knowing Which Law Applies Changes What You Can Ask For
The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act was able to create some new rights for pregnant employees. For example, the PWFA includes a requirement for reasonable accommodations from employers, which the Pregnancy Discrimination Act lacks.
These federal laws pertaining to pregnancy protection overlap each other but they differ in purpose. Time off is regulated by the Family and Medical Leave Act. Meanwhile, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act and Working Families Act have to do with aspects of work discrimination and reasonable accommodation. The PUMP act governs lactation rights. It is necessary for both the employer and the employee to understand the law that is relevant for a particular case.