Tag Archives: Pregnancy Discrimination

New Laws Regarding Pregnant and Nursing Employees

Compensation, Discrimination, Employee Rights, Personnel Policies, , , ,

Every employer with 15 or more names on the payroll needs to understand its obligations under two new federal laws relating to pregnant and nursing employees. With bipartisan support in Congress, the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) and the Providing Urgent Maternal Protections for Nursing Mothers Act (PUMP Act) were passed last month and take effect almost immediately.

PUMP Act

Nursing mothers received some protections under the Affordable Care Act in 2010 to take breaks at work to nurse their infants or to express milk to be refrigerated and saved for later. Those protections have been expanded and recodified with this new law.

What’s new under the PUMP Act?

  • Employees who are breastfeeding an infant can take advantage of the nursing protections at work for 2 years instead of 1 year allowed under the ACA. The wording in the PUMP Act is ambiguous as to when that two-year protection starts. It says, “for the 2-year period beginning on the date on which the circumstances related to such need arise”. What does that even mean?  My best legal guess is that if an employee nursing a child returns to work three months after the baby is born, then her two-year time period will start running on the date of her return.  But don’t let this ambiguity make you anxious. Employers should be patient and remember that only 35% of US babies are still breastfed at all after they are 12 months old. So many employees will not request this accommodation for two years. If an employee is still taking these breaks when the child is older than two years, call your employment lawyer for advice.
  • Although few employers made this distinction in the past, exempt salaried workers were not covered by the ACA nursing mothers provisions. They now have the same rights to nursing breaks under the PUMP Act as hourly workers had with the ACA. Of course, the challenging matter for employers of trying to figure out how to pay an hourly employee who takes nursing breaks is not an issue for salaried employees, because they are paid the same amount every day regardless of the number of breaks they take.
  • Before an employee complains to the EEOC or otherwise sues the employer over violating the PUMP Act, the employee has to tell the employer about its violation of the PUMP Act and give the employer 10 calendar days to start providing an adequate space and time for the employee to breastfeed or pump. In other words, there is a 10-day grace period for you to get your act together if you have somehow failed to comply with the PUMP Act with a particular employee.

The other provisions of the PUMP Act will be administered identically to the ACA provisions that have been in effect for 12 years, so most employers will have to make few significant changes to comply:

What do you as an employer need to do right now to comply with the PUMP Act?

Continue reading New Laws Regarding Pregnant and Nursing Employees →

Firing For Abortion is Discrimination

Discrimination, Employee Rights, Termination, , ,

Since abortion laws are such a hot topic right now, employers should be warned: firing a woman for obtaining an abortion is discrimination.

The Pregnancy Discrimination Act (“PDA”), which amended the federal discrimination law, Title VII, prohibits employers from taking adverse action against an employee “because of or on the basis of pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions”. The EEOC and the courts who have examined this question agree that this definition includes protection for women who chose abortion.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission guidance on the PDA states as follows:

Title VII protects women from being fired for having an abortion or contemplating having an abortion. . . . Title VII would similarly prohibit adverse employment actions against an employee based on her decision not to have an abortion. For example, it would be unlawful for a manager to pressure an employee to have an abortion, or not to have an abortion, in order to retain her job, get better assignments, or stay on a path for advancement.

While our Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has not ruled on this question, the most recent court to examine this issue is a federal district court in Louisiana, which answers to the Fifth Circuit. In Ducharme v. Crescent City Deja Vu, LLC (E.D. La. May 13, 2019)(emphasis added), last week the judge plainly stated:

[A]n abortion is only something that can be undergone during a pregnancy. Title VII requires that “women affected by pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions shall be treated the same for all employment-related purposes.” 42 U.S.C.A. § 2000e(k). A woman terminated from employment because she had an abortion was terminated because she was affected by pregnancy.

The judge in Ducharme found support for this decision in two earlier appellate cases. Doe v. C.A.R.S. Prot. Plus, Inc., 527 F.3d 358, 364 (3rd Cir.), order clarified on other grounds, 543 F.3d 178 (3rd Cir. 2008) (“Clearly, the plain language of the statute, together with the legislative history and the EEOC guidelines, support a conclusion that an employer may not discriminate against a woman employee because she has exercised her right to have an abortion. We now hold that the term ‘related medical conditions’ includes an abortion.”); Turic v. Holland Hosp., Inc., 85 F.3d 1211, 1214 (6th Cir. 1996) (“Thus, the plain language of the statute, the legislative history and the EEOC guidelines clearly indicate that an employer may not discriminate against a woman employee because ‘she has exercised her right to have an abortion.’).

There is another important lesson in this case besides understanding that abortion cannot play any role in an employment decision. The lesson for business owners, managers and supervisors is to think before you speak and keep your strong opinions about sensitive topics like abortion out of the workplace.

Even though the judge’s opinion acknowledged that a woman choosing abortion is protected under Title VII, the ex-employee in Ducharme did not prevail on her claim against her employer in part because she failed to demonstrate that her employer actually fired her for the abortion instead of the on-the-job drinking. A significant part of the court’s reasoning was based on the fact that the employer who did the firing, Ms. Salzer, did not actually demonstrate an anti-abortion bias:

Perhaps most fatal to plaintiff’s pregnancy discrimination claim, however, is the complete absence of any support for any alleged anti-abortion animus by Ms. Salzer. Here, it is uncontroverted that Ms. Salzer had never said anything about abortion or religion to Ms. Ducharme at any time during their 18-month relationship. Ms. Ducharme does not dispute that when she informed Ms. Salzer that she was planning on undergoing an abortion, Ms. Salzer did not attempt to talk her out of it and did not say that she disapproved of the decision. There is no evidence that prior to that, Ms. Salzer had ever said anything to suggest to Ms. Ducharme that she would disapprove of the abortion. Ms. Salzer had never said anything political about abortion. Ms. Ducharme did not think of Ms. Salzer as religious.

So the employer did not:

  • Say anything about abortion or religion to Ms. Ducharme at any time during the 18 months Ms. Ducharme worked there;
  • Try to talk Ms. Ducharme out of her decision to have an abortion;
  • Express disapproval about Ms. Ducharme’s decision;
  • Generally talk about her religious or political views in the workplace.

Consider how differently this case could have gone if the employer was a known abortion opponent who lectured his/her employees on the evils of abortion, strongly objected when an employee asked for time off for an abortion and then fired that employee soon thereafter. That employer’s words and actions on this sensitive medical, religious and political issue would definitely come back to bite the employer in a discrimination case.

Or consider the flipside. What if the employer were very strongly in favor of abortion rights and did not want a top-performing female employee to lose any work time to pregnancy and a maternity leave? That employer’s statements encouraging the employee to end the pregnancy “for the good of the business” and to increase the employee’s chances of advancement could also be strong evidence in a pregnancy discrimination case.

The lesson is that your workplace is not the right place for a boss to pontificate on religious and political hot topics. As an employer, you can be you without hostility or stridency towards who your employees are or what they believe. Successful leaders create more welcoming, tolerant workplaces and give fewer lectures.

Workplaces Must Accommodate A Nursing Mother

Compensation, Discrimination, Employee Rights, Personnel Policies, , , , , , ,

A nursing mother in your workplace has certain employment rights that you as an employer must understand. Until the time that the child is one year old, Texas employers must provide the time and space for the mother to breastfeed the baby (if children are allowed at the workplace) or to express milk to be stored for later.

The federal compensation law, the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”), was amended in 2010 to require employers to provide nursing mothers with “reasonable” break time to pump breast milk. Employers must realize that there is no one definition of what is “reasonable” that applies to every new mother.

The Department of Labor says in its Fact Sheet #73 regarding Break Time for Nursing Mothers, “employers are required to provide a reasonable amount of break time to express milk as frequently as needed by the nursing mother. The frequency of breaks needed to express milk, as well as the duration of each break, will likely vary.” Speaking from experience, nursing may take 10 minutes, 25 minutes, 40 minutes or even longer and isn’t standardized from mom to mom, day to day, or break to break.

If you provide coffee breaks or meal breaks during the day to other employees and pay them during that break (which the FLSA requires you to do if the break is less than 20 minutes), then you should allow your nursing mothers to use those breaks if convenient and be paid during those breaks just like any other employee.

Otherwise, nursing breaks do not have to be compensated, so you can require a nonexempt (hourly) employee to clock out during the break so that the nursing break isn’t paid. If that means that the employee has to stay longer each day to actually perform work for 40 hours per week, you as an employee can require that extra time. Or you can choose to pay the employee for only the hours worked, which may be less than 40 when lots of nursing breaks are taken.

The easiest way to address compensation is to have a written policy that states that all nursing breaks of 20 minutes or less are paid, but longer breaks are unpaid.

You also have a responsibility as an employer to provide a place for the nursing mother to breastfeed or express milk. That place cannot be a bathroom. The area must be private with a lock on the door or another way to assure that the public and/or coworkers won’t barge in while the employee is nursing or pumping. If you have more than one nursing mother employed at a time, it is common practice to have a sign up or reservation-type system for the room you designate for expressing milk.

The secluded place the employer provides must be functional for expressing milk, meaning it should at least be furnished with a comfortable chair. Many employers provide a small dorm-sized refrigerator and a Sharpee in the nursing area so that the expressed milk can be labelled and dated and kept cool until the new mother can take it home.

Texas allows employers who adopt a new mother-friendly written policy to advertise that it is a “mother-friendly” business. If that “carrot” approach doesn’t convince you, then the “stick” is that failure to provide adequate breaks and a secure place for nursing mothers means that not only will your business be violating the FLSA, but also the employee can bring a sex discrimination or sexual harassment action if you have at least 15 employees.

A federal court has also ruled that breastfeeding is a medical condition related to pregnancy and maternity, so you can also be sued under the Pregnancy Discrimination Act. You must additionally prevent an employee from being retaliated against for exercising her rights as a nursing mother, i.e., you must assure that her supervisor doesn’t give her a poor evaluation or demote her because her nursing rights create some disruption in the office.

Small employers (less than 50) have one defense to these kinds of claims. Continue reading Workplaces Must Accommodate A Nursing Mother →

Accommodating Pregnant Employees

Discrimination, Forms and Policies, Medical, , , ,

Employers often face the question of how to reasonably accommodate pregnant employees. Many of my male (and some of my female) clients panic when they discover that one of their employees is pregnant. They fear that the pregnant employee won’t be able to do the work, that the employee will have some kind of workplace injury or that the employee won’t return to work after maternity leave.

Most employers walk on eggshells around their pregnant employees, even afraid to ask when the baby is due so that the employer can plan for work to get done while the employee is out on maternity leave. Overall, employers are just scared that they will inadvertently do something that will get them sued for pregnancy discrimination.

Their fear is not unfounded. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the courts are taking a careful look at pregnancy discrimination. They want employers to reasonably accommodate the pregnant employee just as you would a disabled employee. You would do this anyway if the expectant mother had any pregnancy complications, such as gestational diabetes.

The only change is that now you would be wise to accommodate an employee who is having a normal, healthy pregnancy, if the employee asks for a reasonable accommodation.

A recent U.S. Supreme Court case held that a plaintiff can establish an initial case of pregnancy discrimination by showing that she is pregnant, that she sought some sort of reasonable accommodation for her condition, that the employer did not accommodate her, and that the employer did accommodate others “similar in their ability or inability to work.”

In other words, if you let other employees work light duty jobs from time to time, you need to allow your pregnant employee the same privilege. If you would allow an employee who has severe back problems to skip the duty of lifting heavy boxes, do the same for a pregnant employee is she asks for that accommodation. If standing at a cash register all day is hard on an expectant mother, offer a stool for her to sit on, just as you would an elderly employee.

Don’t be patronizing and assume that a pregnant employee can’t work or needs an accommodation. Allow her the dignity of working without help if she chooses. But if an accommodation is requested, you should engage the employee in a discussion (“the interactive process”) to determine what help she needs. You can decide together if her request is reasonable or if there are other equally effective options. Work willingly with your employee to help her out for a few months and she will most likely be glad to return after her maternity leave to be a very productive employee.

Here are a few other quick tips for dealing with pregnant employees: Continue reading Accommodating Pregnant Employees →