What the new U.S. law protecting pregnant workers means for Pennsylvania

A new federal law that took effect last week means more pregnant people will be able to get adjustments to their work schedules or work environment.

The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which passed in December, now puts the responsibility on employers to find a reasonable accommodation when pregnant workers ask for adjustments to their work environment or schedule because of pregnancy-related needs. It includes accommodations related to fertility treatments, morning sickness, lactation, gestational diabetes, pregnancy loss, and postpartum depression, as well as time off for childbirth recovery and time off for accessing abortion care.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission started accepting charges under the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act on June 27.

Philadelphia’s Fair Practice Ordinance provides many similar rights for pregnant workers, but for Pennsylvanians outside the city the new federal law will provide protections they didn’t have before, said Sophia Elliot, a staff attorney with the Pennsylvania-based Women’s Law Project.

Elliot spoke with The Inquirer about the new federal law and what it means for pregnant people in Pennsylvania. The conversation has been edited lightly for length and clarity.

It’s a federal law that fills in existing gaps in accommodations for workers who are pregnant, have just given birth, or have other pregnancy-related medical conditions that don’t amount to a disability. Prior to this law, there was no national law that required employers to provide reasonable accommodations, absent an undue hardship, to employees who were pregnant or had just given birth. What that meant in practice is that workers who were pregnant or who had just given birth who needed temporary accommodations — like a short period of leave to recover from childbirth — and didn’t qualify for FMLA or didn’t have a pregnancy-related disability were left with very few options. They could be forced off the job, forced onto long-term leave, or fired. So it was a really precarious place and really uncertain place for those workers to be.

I see a lot of workers who need very reasonable accommodations to continue their jobs. That could be things like a uniform change — the ability to wear comfortable clothes or sneakers if they stand or walk for long periods of time at work. It could mean a light-duty assignment. Sometimes it means working from home, which we know after the pandemic is something that’s very feasible [for some jobs], and many people did for a period of time. Other types of accommodations I often hear people request are as simple as a chair and opportunity to take a five- or 10-minute break, an opportunity to drink more water throughout their shift.

The other part of what I see is [when people] need a period of leave to recover from childbirth ... and not have to come back to work immediately, like days after they’ve delivered.

FMLA only applied to employees who had met certain requirements, including having worked with their employer for more than a year. And [under FMLA], the employer has to have [at least 50] employees. [Employees] also have to work for a certain number of hours [to be eligible for FMLA]. The vast majority of people left behind were people who recently got a new job.

The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act is different in that it covers employees who work for an employer with 15 or more employees, and it covers them from the moment they apply for that job. If they need accommodations to get that job, the employer cannot discriminate against them even in the hiring process, because they have made it known that they’re pregnant or have just given birth and that they’re going to need some sort of accommodation.

The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act does not require that you have a pregnancy-related disability. It provides accommodations for any sort of ordinary accommodation that someone might need through their pregnancy, regardless of whether there’s an associated disability.

Right, a very common [accommodation] would be a weight restriction later in pregnancy, so people who work in physically demanding jobs would be entitled to light duty or a modified work assignment, or some may prefer to just go part-time. The law is clear that what should happen once an employee vocalizes their need for accommodation is an interactive process between the employee and the employer to find something that’s not burdensome for the employer and is workable for both parties.

When an employee makes known to their employer that they’re pregnant and they have a need for an accommodation, they don’t have to use special words. They just have to make it known. Once the employer has knowledge, it’s the employer’s responsibility to provide the accommodation, to engage in an interactive process with the employee, and they should do so quickly.

The exception there is if the accommodation would pose an undue hardship to the employer, but a lot of the accommodation requests that I see in my work are very reasonable. And I think with cooperation between the employer and the employee, it’s not difficult to come up with a solution. Keep in mind, too, that these accommodations are most often temporary, just through the period of pregnancy and childbirth. That makes it harder for the employer in many cases ... to raise the undue hardship exception.

We definitely need paid family leave, and we need more robust paid sick leave ... paid leave for families who need to care for family members who may be sick. The U.S. has fallen behind other developed countries that already provide for these things. At the state level, we [in Pennsylvania] also don’t have family leave, and lots of other states already do have that. I do see those as kind of the next step.

I think ... what people will find is that this [new law] is not burdensome, and it is good for the economy.

When we ask someone to come back to work three days after they deliver, we’re jeopardizing their health and their opportunity to recover from childbirth and bond with their infant, and that can have really dire short- and long-term consequences. If they lose their job, they lose income and they could lose their health care at a critical time. I’ve heard from people who have accumulated debt and end up losing seniority in the workforce. And that could impact your future job prospects and earning potential as well.

This kind of law at both the federal and state level is really critical to ensure that we are protecting and valuing our pregnant workers and mothers.