EEOC to meet today to discuss pregnancy discrimination

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) will hold a public meeting on the subject of pregnancy discrimination and caregiver issues at 9:30 a.m. today in Washington, DC. If you are in the area, feel free to stop by. The meeting is open to the public.

According to this press release, the Commission will examine “recent trends in discrimination against pregnant workers and workers with caregiving responsibilities, examining these two forms of discrimination as a continuum.”

The timing of this meeting couldn’t be better. The blogosphere has been abuzz about this recent decision in which a federal judge reasoned that lactation “is not pregnancy, childbirth, or a related medical condition” and, therefore, is not pregnancy-related. Consequently, “firing someone because of lactation or breast-pumping is not sex discrimination.”

Methinks that may get discussed. I’ll have a follow-up post on the meeting after it concludes.