Compliance Stuff

With Mother’s Day and Father’s Day approaching, employers may want to consider the benefits and protections afforded to employees who become pregnant or welcome a child to the family, as well as the employer’s legal responsibilities. Quick Hits Federal and state laws prohibit employment discrimination, harassment, and retaliation based on pregnancy. Employers may be required to provide leave and reasonable accommodations for employees experiencing pregnancy or childbirth, undergoing fertility treatments, or breastfeeding. Applying benefits and accommodations consistently can help employers reduce legal risk.   Legal Protections Several federal laws provide benefits and protect pregnant workers from discrimination, harassment, and retaliation in the workplace. In 1978, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act amended Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to prohibit employment discrimination based on pregnancy. Many states have similar laws providing benefits and legal protections for p...

[co-author: Leah Shepherd] March is Women’s History Month, lending itself to a review of the lessons learned over the last three years since enactment of the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA). While the guidance from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) provides some insight, employers regularly face accommodation requests falling within areas of lingering ambiguity . There are, however, some recent enforcement actions that may provide some clarity for navigating unchartered waters. Quick Hits The PWFA mandates that covered employers provide reasonable accommodations for pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions. Since the PWFA went into effect, the EEOC has initiated several lawsuits alleging violations, focusing on failure to accommodate, unlawful termination, and forced leave for pregnancy-related conditions . Most have resulted in settlements, while others remain pending. The EEOC received 2,729 charges of discrimination alleging violation of the P...

President Trump just took the unprecedented step of firing two Democratic members of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and freed himself up to quickly install a majority of Republican commissioners rather than having to wait until their normal terms expire over the next two years. The terminations of Charlotte Burrows and Jocelyn Samuels, revealed yesterday, will have reverberations in workplaces across the country and will certainly set off legal challenges over the scope of presidential power. In the meantime, employers will be left to grapple with the appropriate responses during a limbo period. What is the impact of these terminations and how should employers adjust? Here is a set of FAQs to help guide you through these tumultuous times. What does the EEOC do? The EEOC is the federal agency that enforces anti-bias workplace laws based on race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, gender identity, and sexual orientation), national origin, age, disability, and geneti...