Two essential ways we need to support pregnant workers

Here’s the truth: the United States doesn’t do enough to ensure decent treatment of pregnant workers. Sure, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, passed in 1978, prohibits employers from discriminating against employees on the basis of pregnancy. But this law alone is not enough. To truly enjoy equal opportunity in the workplace, many pregnant workers need more than just better enforcement of anti-discrimination law: they also need rights specific to pregnant workers’ needs, like the ability to take more frequent bathroom breaks or paid sick leave — which the law, right now, doesn’t always require employers to provide.

Here’s what you need to know about two proposed bills in Congress now that would dramatically help pregnant workers, and what you can do to make them law:

Pregnant Workers Fairness Act

Pregnancy discrimination law is kinda confusing, so bear with me here.

Right now, if you’re pregnant and need a workplace accommodation — even something simple like being allowed to take extra restroom breaks — you have to show that you are medically impaired by the pregnancy (the whole fetus-in-womb thing isn’t enough). But that’s not all. You also have to show that your employer would provide the same accommodations to a temporarily disabled non-pregnant colleague “similar in their ability or inability to work.”

That means, for example, that if your doctor tells you not to do heavy lifting during pregnancy as a general precaution, but your employer only provides “light duty” work to employees who are already disabled (and not those, like you, at risk of injury), you might be forced to choose between following your doctor’s advice and keeping your job.

Or, you may be having a perfectly healthy pregnancy and finding that you feel not just hungry but truly ravenous every couple of hours. But right now, just because you’re eating for two doesn’t mean your employer has to make an exception for you if there’s a rule against snacking during work hours.

But there’s hope! The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) would set a baseline of fair treatment by requiring employers to provide reasonable accommodations to pregnant workers who need them when they could do so without “undue hardship.”  Some examples of what reasonable accommodations for pregnant workers could look like include:

• Allowing a pregnant worker to keep water or snacks at a workstation
• Providing a stool for a pregnant cashier to sit on during work
• Reassigning heavy lifting to a pregnant person’s co-workers for the duration of the pregnancy

Adjustments like these may seem minor, but they can make all the difference for pregnant people who want and need to keep working. Without a law requiring employers to make these accommodations, many simply refuse to provide them. For example, in 2009, a Kansas court found that Wal-Mart fired one pregnant employee simply for carrying a water bottle, which she needed to stay hydrated and prevent bladder infections.  (The case settled out of court.)

On June 4, the PWFA was reintroduced with bipartisan support, so make sure to reach out to your Congressperson and Senator to urge them to co-sponsor the PWFA: you can do that here. And don’t forget that some states (and one city) have already enacted their own versions of the PWFA. Find out if you live in one of these places — and if not, check in with local organizers or your representative to see how to change that.

Healthy Families Act

Nearly 80% of low-wage workers don’t get paid sick leave. That’s a problem for everyone, but hits pregnant workers particularly hard since they’ll likely need to take more days off than non-pregnant colleagues to take care of themselves. Plus, pregnant people also know they’ll likely have to use up more days to fulfill caregiving responsibilities after delivery: babies take work, and women, most of whom will become pregnant at some point and who make the up the vast majority of pregnant people, disproportionately perform family care.

The Healthy Families Act would help to alleviate this burden by allowing workers at businesses with at least 15 employees to earn up to earn up to seven job-protected sick days each year. The good news is that 88 percent of voters support this common sense legislation allowing workers to earn paid sick leave and in March of this year, a bipartisan Senate majority voted in favor of paid sick leave. While that vote was merely a symbolic gesture — they only voted on a statement in support, not the Healthy Families Act itself — it a really good sign that Congress might actually pass a sick leave bill soon.

Want to help make that happen? Urge your representatives to support the Healthy Families Act by clicking here!

The article was cross-posted with Equal Rights Advocates.

Header image credit: Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.