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HR Outsourcing News Roundup: Pregnancy Discrimination Edition
No CommentsLast month, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued new guidance on the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, expanding the protections all employers must provide to their pregnant employees. As an employer, you may be wondering what these changes mean for you and what you’ll need to do to avoid lawsuits moving forward.
This week’s HR Outsourcing News Roundup brings you articles and blog posts that discuss the specifics of the EEOC’s Pregnancy Discrimination Act guidance and what it means for employers.
8 Rights of Pregnant Women at Work. CNN Money: “Sometimes an employer thinks they’re acting in the best interest of the employee — or protecting itself from liabilities — when it decides to reassign a pregnant woman or new parent to a less strenuous job. Employers cannot base employment decisions on assumptions about pregnant women’s capabilities and health concerns. For example, a boss cannot prevent a pregnant worker from traveling on business trips, because he’s concerned about her health. A company cannot deny a pregnant woman a promotion, assuming once she returns to work after childbirth, she will be less committed to her job. Employers also cannot reassign workers to less desirable jobs, even temporarily, due to concerns about a pregnancy.”
New statistics: Pregnancy Discrimination Claims Hit Low-Wage Workers Hardest. The Washington Post: “EEOC and employment lawyers say they’ve litigated cases from blue collar, pink collar and white collar professions. One Arlington, Va., lawyer sued on behalf of an executive who was sidelined for merely saying she might get pregnant. And Lyndsay Kirkham, a Toronto-based editor and writer, set Twitter on fire recently when she live tweeted what she said were snippets of IBM executives’ lunch conversation about how they prefer not to hire young women because they’ll get pregnant. (IBM did not respond to ThinkProgress, where the story appeared.) But the new data shows clearly that pregnancy discrimination claims filed with the EEOC are made primarily by women in low-wage fields.”
Pregnant Employees Now Entitled to ADA-Type Accommodations. JD Supra: “The EEOC has issued new guidance on the reach of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (‘PDA’) that greatly expands the protections it claims all employers must provide to pregnant employees. The two most significant new provisions of this guidance are that (1) the PDA requires that pregnant employees be afforded the same job accommodations as Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) qualifying disabled employees, and that (2) denying a pregnant employee light duty work pursuant to a policy limiting such work to employees injured on the job violates the PDA. Both positions obviously represent significant departures from prior EEOC policy and even case authority.”
Strategies: What to Think About the EEOC’s Pregnancy Opinion. Denver Business Journal: “As Commissioner Lipnic emphasized, these are important issues. They deserve deliberative and inclusive lawmaking. Women play an ever-larger role in our economy, but these issues are not simply important to pregnant women, or even women. Pregnancy rights are important to the spouses, family, friends and co-workers of pregnant women. Clarity on these issues is critical for employers. Employment law must develop in a way that facilitates every worker’s ability to support personal and family growth.”
Can an Employer Be Sued for Pregnancy Discrimination? Law.com: “…if a woman is temporarily unable to perform her job due to some medical condition caused and/or related to pregnancy or childbirth, her Employer must treat her the same way as it treats any other temporarily disabled employee. If the Employer provides certain accommodations to disabled employees, such as light duty work, alternative assignments, temporary disability leave or unpaid leave, the Employer must provide those same accommodations to a female employee who is temporarily unable to perform her job because of her pregnancy or childbirth.”
If you have more questions about pregnancy discrimination and other employment compliance issues, contact us. We’re here to help.
HR Solutions is a human resources outsourcing firm based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. We eliminate human resources headaches for businesses with 10 to 1,000 employees by handling their payroll, employee benefits, regulatory compliance and other staffing needs. Contact us to learn how we can streamline your company’s human resources function to save money and reduce risk.
