Human Resources Perspective
Policy/Procedure: Policies and procedures need to be up-to-date and meet current guidelines.
Implementation: Provide education during new hire orientation and staff in-servicing as laws and regulations change. Supervisors and managers should be aware of the need for pregnancy light duty if other light duty is provided to employees.
Audit: All light duty requests should be reviewed with senior management for direction. Internal and external audits should ensure that all requests for accommodation have been documented.
An investigation into pregnancy discrimination in the workplace has renewed calls for a long-overdue update to the Pregnancy Discrimination Act after The New York Times reported on several women who suffered pregnancy loss after their employers demanded that they continue working under strenuous conditions after they had announced their pregnancies—a practice that is completely legal under the 40-year-old law.
The women interviewed by The Times reported that they had been ordered to carry heavy boxes and equipment and work long shifts, despite presenting doctors’ notes asking their employers to amend their workloads. Atone warehouse in Tennessee, at least four women miscarried in 2014 after the company refused to follow their doctors’ orders.
The Pregnancy Discrimination Act was passed in 1978 and has never been updated through legislation, despite lawmakers regularly proposing a new law that would give pregnant workers the same protections the Americans with Disabilities Act provides to workers who qualify. As The Times reported, the current law simply stipulates that”a company has to accommodate pregnant workers’ requests only if it is already doing so for other employees who are ‘similar in their ability or inability to work.”
