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Early EEOC Pregnant Worker Bias Suits Signal Enforcement Goals
“The EEOC bringing these cases is really sending a clear message about what is required by the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act and what actions employers should avoid,” said Gaylynn Burroughs, vice president for education and workplace justice at the National Women’s Law Center.
The agency’s inclusion of choosing to have or not have an abortion as a related medical condition under the PWFA became a target for several lawsuits by Republican-led states and Catholic organizations in ongoing cases.
But the EEOC complaints did not involve breaches of the law over abortion-related accommodations. Instead the lawsuits dealt with the core of the law in cases about workers allegedly being denied time off or modifications to their jobs while pregnant.
The cases brought by the EEOC this year are “really about common-sense accommodations,” Burroughs said.
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Although the laws differ, they also “operate together,” and PWFA aimed to “fill in the gaps left by existing protections,” Burroughs said.
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“I think that people are realizing it exists and they have rights and responsibilities under the law,” Burroughs said.
