Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA)

The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act was introduced in the Senate last week. To help you learn more about the legislation and why it’s critically important to pregnant workers, here are five fast facts about pregnancy and the workplace.

1) Neither the Pregnancy Discrimination Act nor the Americans with Disabilities Act explicitly require employers to provide minor workplace accommodations if pregnant employees need them.

While the Pregnancy Discrimination Act extends Title VII employment discrimination protections to pregnant employees, all too often courts have held that it does not protect women who need minor adjustments on the job during pregnancy, such as being permitted to carry a water bottle, take more frequent bathroom breaks, or get a temporary reprieve from heavy lifting — unless the pregnant woman can point to someone else doing exactly the same work who needed and received exactly the same job adjustments but who wasn't pregnant. It will often be impossible to find this nonpregnant identical twin. The Americans with Disabilities Act also doesn't apply, because pregnancy itself is not a disability (although pregnancy complications, like preeclampsia or gestational diabetes, can be).

2) The United States does not have a federal law requiring paid medical or parental leave.

Although the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) provides twelve weeks of unpaid leave during which your employer, if large enough to be covered by the law, will save your job, most employers don't provide paid medical or family leave, and very few workers in low-wage jobs have access to more than a few days of paid leave for medical needs. Read more »

The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act was introduced in the Senate today.

When I tell people about the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, they are often taken aback that there is a need for this legislation. I get it: it seems like common sense that employees should not be punished for needing medical accommodations like more frequent breaks to drink water, or a stool to sit on behind a cash register.

Yet, stories from across the country make clear that pregnant workers desperately need the protections offered by the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which would require that employers provide reasonable accommodations to employees for pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical accommodations, just as they do now for employees with disabilities. Pregnant workers have been forced onto unpaid leave – or even fired – simply for asking for accommodations like a bathroom or water break. When pregnant workers have challenged these decisions in court, they have lost. This is because courts have held that the Pregnancy Discrimination Act does not explicitly require employers to provide accommodations for pregnant workers – a loophole the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act would close. Read more »

Heather got fired from Wal-Mart for carrying a water bottle.

Natasha was forced onto unpaid leave and then fired because her district manager at Rent-A-Center found out she needed help with occasional heavy lifting on the sales floor.

Sarah* lost her job at a fast food restaurant for taking bathroom and water breaks.

What do all of these women have in common? They were all pregnant.

All they needed were minor adjustments to continue safely working during pregnancy.  They didn’t get these adjustments.  And they all lost their jobs because of it.

The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act would put an end to this absurdity. Senators Bob Casey and Jeanne Shaheen will introduce the bill in the U.S. Senate today. Representative Jerrold Nadler introduced the PWFA in the U.S. House of Representatives in May, and it now has more than 100 co-sponsors. Public health organizations, business organizations, women’s organizations, worker organizations, and religious groups have lined up in support as well.

The PWFA would make it illegal to fire a pregnant employee who requests a reasonable accommodation – such as a water break, bathroom break, or modification of a lifting requirement. Pregnant workers would have the same rights to temporary accommodations on the job that are available to workers with disabilities.

Why do we need this bill? Stories like the ones above sound like they are from the Dark Ages, right? Before the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 made it illegal to discriminate against pregnant workers, women were expected to quit their jobs when they became pregnant. Back then, pregnancy was widely regarded as a disabling condition. Read more »

On Monday, the news broke that a pregnant woman is now leading a Fortune 500 company—an important and exciting milestone. Before being appointed CEO of Yahoo this week, Marissa Mayer disclosed her pregnancy to Yahoo’s Board. When she announced her pregnancy publicly on Monday, she praised the Board for its “evolved thinking” in hiring her anyway – that is, for not violating the Pregnancy Discrimination Act.

I’m not so sure following the law is all that praiseworthy, but here’s what made me cringe as I read the otherwise great news of a pregnant woman breaking through the glass ceiling:

Mayer told Forbes, “My maternity leave will be a few weeks long and I’ll work throughout it.”

I’m picturing a phalanx of 24/7 baby nurses, a state-of-the-art high-tech home office located in a spacious and sunny corner of a beautiful nursery, an in-house lactation consultant, a personal chef, and, don’t forget the personal trainer! As the CEO, Mayer will be free to telecommute to her heart’s content, which is not at all the situation for most working women. Read more »

Yesterday, the 100th co-sponsor in the House of Representatives, Grace Napolitano (D-CA), signed on in support of the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act. The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act would ensure that employers provide pregnant workers with simple accommodations if they need them to safely continue working during pregnancy.

The National Women’s Law Center is grateful to all of the bill’s co-sponsors for supporting this important piece of legislation.

So why is it so important?

To answer that question, today I asked Dr. Maureen Perry-Jenkins what happens to low-wage working women when they can’t get simple accommodations that they need during their pregnancies. Dr. Perry-Jenkins is a researcher at the University of Massachusetts conducting a federally-funded study of low-wage working families across the transition to parenthood.

Here’s her answer: All too often, pregnant low-wage workers wind up out of a job.

It is common for women in Dr. Perry-Jenkins’ studies to report they felt they had no choice other than to quit their physically demanding jobs in those instances when their pregnancies no longer permitted them to stand for long periods of time, lift heavy objects or work very long shifts with no break. Read more »

Help Close the Pregnancy Loophole!

Tell your Representative to co-sponsor the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act.

We are so close! So far, over eighty-eight Representatives have co-sponsored the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act. This bill would ensure that pregnant women are treated fairly on the job.

Help us reach 100 co-sponsors by the end of the week by emailing your Representative today! The more co-sponsors on this bill, the more likely it is to get moving!

So what's the problem? Courts have created a pregnancy loophole that allows many employers to refuse to accommodate even simple requests to help workers maintain healthy pregnancies. Pregnant women have been fired because they asked to avoid heavy lifting, or to stay off ladders, or to sit on a stool instead of standing at a cash register all day.

The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act would change this. Read more »

Help Pregnant Women in the Workplace

Share your story about pregnancy discrimination on the job.

Unfortunately, this is exactly what happened to a pregnant retail worker in Kansas. She was fired for following her doctor's advice and drinking water while working because it violated store policy.

So how can this be legal?

Courts have created a pregnancy loophole that allows many employers to refuse to accommodate even simple requests to help workers maintain healthy pregnancies. Pregnant women have been fired because they asked to avoid heavy lifting, or to stay off ladders, or to sit on a stool instead of standing at a cash register all day. It happens a lot. Maybe it happened to you.

The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act would change this. It would require employers to make the same sorts of reasonable accommodations for pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions that they do for disabilities, ensuring pregnant women can continue to do their jobs and support their families.

But as we advocate for this bill in Congress, we hear the same question again and again: Has this happened to any of my constituents? We need to know your story. Read more »

Who knew we needed a law to protect pregnant women from being fired for taking a bathroom break or drinking water on the job? Speakers at today’s press conference after the introduction of the Pregnancy Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) highlighted the reality many women face in ultimately having to choose between a healthy pregnancy and their job.

At the press conference bill sponsor, Representative Nadler (D-NY), described cases where the law has failed to protect pregnant workers. Rep. Nadler stated what should be the obvious: that the economic devastation of a pregnant woman losing her job impacts not only her, but her family and the employer as well.

NWLC’s Emily Martin spoke at the conference. Martin explained how some courts have limited the protections set out in current law, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA).

Martin, pictured above, described the gap courts have created between the PDA and Americans with Disabilities Act, which leaves pregnant workers unprotected when they need accommodations during ordinary pregnancy, such as avoiding lifting heavy objects in the last 6 weeks. The result, Martin explained, is that women “are losing their jobs because employers refuse to make temporary modifications to allow women to perform their jobs safely.”

A pregnant woman’s job shouldn’t depend on her willingness to ignore her doctor’s advice. But many women face just this choice, particularly women working in physically demanding jobs. When an employer refuses to accommodate, say, a request to shift job duties so a pregnant worker can avoid lifting more than twenty pounds for a few months, the worker will often lose her job (and possibly her health insurance), at the worst possible moment for her family. Today, Representative Nadler (D-NY) and more than 60 cosponsors introduced the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA), a bill that would ensure women are no longer forced into this impossible position.

The PWFA provides that employers must make reasonable accommodations when employees have limitations related to pregnancy or childbirth and when these accommodations do not pose an undue hardship to employers. In other words, it requires employers to provide pregnant workers the exact same sort of accommodations they already provide employees with disabilities under the Americans with Disabilities Act. In the absence of the PWFA, courts have often rejected the claims of women whose employers fired them when they sought modifications that would allow them to continue to do their jobs.  Read more »

Help Close the Pregnancy Loophole!

Tell your Representative to co-sponsor the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act to ensure that pregnant women are treated fairly on the job.

Call (202) 224-3121 today!

Yes it's true: In 2012, getting pregnant can still cost you your job.

Thanks to a gap opened between discrimination laws and disability laws by court decisions, some employers are refusing to accommodate even simple requests that help workers maintain a healthy pregnancy.

Here are three startling examples of women who, thanks to the pregnancy loophole, were fired for doing what was best for their pregnancies:

• A retail sales associate in Salina, Kansas was fired for drinking water while working because it violated store policy.
• A nursing home activities director in Valparaiso, Indiana lost her job because she could no longer lift heavy tables, an activity that took up less than 10 minutes of her workday and with which her coworkers routinely volunteered to assist.
• A pregnant truck driver in Tennessee was instructed by her obstetrician not to lift more than 20 pounds and sought light duty work. Her employer terminated her, as it made such modifications only to those injured on the job.

Sounds crazy, right? Unfortunately, thousands of pregnant women are forced to choose between losing their jobs (or taking unpaid leave) and endangering their pregnancies, when just a few small workplace accommodations are usually all that's needed.

To close this egregious pregnancy loophole, Pregnant Workers Fairness Act was introduced today in the House of Representatives by Reps. Nadler (D-NY) and a number of his colleagues. To give this bill a solid start, we need as many Representatives to co-sponsor this bill as possible.

Will you take 3 minutes to call your Representative and ask them to co-sponsor the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act? Calling is easy to do. Read more »