Yesterday, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced (here) that an employer will fork over $400,000, split among 11 women, stemming from a written policy that violates both the Pregnancy Discrimination Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act. According to the EEOC’s complaint it filed in federal court in 2021,…
I won’t bury the lede. Here’s the takeaway from this post. If an employer doesn’t know that an employee is pregnant, it can’t possibly discriminate against her because she is pregnant. That’s pretty much what happened in this 11th Circuit decision that I read last night. Here are the pertinent…
Last week, while many of you were in your offices with the doors closed, pretending to work before the holiday break, the Senate and House passed an omnibus spending package incorporating two separate pieces of legislation to protect pregnant workers and new moms. Pregnant Workers Fairness Act Introduced in May,…
Credit: Office of Commissioner Andrea R. Lucas Late last week, as I enjoyed the FisherBroyles partner retreat (responsibly-ish) in Nashville, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission released a new resource on pregnancy discrimination. Spoiler alert: The Dallas Cowboys won’t make the playoffs this season resource doesn’t contain any game-changing new…
Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Labor announced a series of August events highlighting the importance of maternal health and workplace protections for expectant and new mothers to mark National Breastfeeding Month. On Aug. 10, from 1 to 2:30 p.m. EDT, the department’s Wage and Hour Division and Women’s Bureau and the U.S.…
Yesterday, we covered whether the Family and Medical Leave Act allows women who have an abortion to obtain leave for a serious health condition. Today, we’ll talk about the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA), which amended Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to prohibit employers from taking adverse employment…
pregnant woman by Adrien Coquet from the Noun Project Days Since Last COVID-19 Mandatory Vaccination Post: One Zero. A little over a month ago, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) officially recommended vaccinations for all women who are pregnant, breastfeeding, trying to get pregnant now, or might become…
Image by TheDigitalWay from Pixabay Several news outlets reported yesterday that a major airline that has already mandated employee vaccinations will begin placing employees on temporary unpaid leave if approved for a religious vaccine exemption. You can read more on the story here, here, and here. According to the CNBC…
Image by Klaus Hausmann from Pixabay Imagine requiring a job applicant to reveal whether she is pregnant. That’s bad! And what if that was a company policy? That’s worse. But, let’s suppose that the company’s policy of disclosing pregnancies is IN WRITING. Ho-Ley 💩‼ These are just some of the…
Image Credit: Photofunia On Friday, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission posted updated and expanded technical assistance related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The new guidance answers open questions on issues surrounding vaccines like: Can an employer require employees to get vaccinated? Can an employer incentivize employees to get vaccines? How…