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It’s positive! You’re going to be a mom. Are you excited? Nervous? It’s a life-changing moment for anyone. We have come a long way over the past few years toward greater acceptance of women in the workplace, but pregnancy discrimination still happens.
Women may still feel nervous about telling their employer they are pregnant or worry that starting a family could affect their career. Make no mistake, employers cannot treat you differently because of pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions.
Pregnancy discrimination is one form of unlawful workplace discrimination prohibited under federal and Pennsylvania law. Employees have the right to work free from discrimination based on protected characteristics, including pregnancy. Learn more about your legal rights on our Workplace Discrimination Lawyers page.
If your employer denied you opportunities, treated you unfairly, or terminated your employment because of your pregnancy, The Lacy Employment Law Firm can help you understand your legal rights and pursue the compensation you may be entitled to.
Employers cannot assume that a pregnant woman cannot do her job properly. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is a federal agency that investigates workplace pregnancy discrimination.
It also provides guidance on the different employment law statutes. This includes pregnancy discrimination.
The EEOC provides an interesting example of an assumption.
In this example, a woman took off work because she was not feeling well. Her sickness was unrelated to her pregnancy.
When she returned to work, her boss told her that her body was trying to tell her something and that he needed an employee who would not have attendance problems.
The next day, her employer terminated her. The investigation revealed that this woman had better attendance than non-pregnant employees.
Now, in this example, the boss did not explicitly say that the attendance problems were because of her pregnancy. After all, she asked for time off for a different reason. And when he told her that her “body was trying to tell her something,” he didn’t necessarily mean pregnancy. He could have been talking about the sickness.
But the recorded evidence revealed that she did not have any previous attendance issues. The boss, however, assumed that because she was pregnant she must have attendance issues.
Her previous attendance record is how pregnancy discrimination lawyers would prove pregnancy discrimination in this case. This example would have made for a strong pregnancy discrimination case.
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) allows for disabled workers to request reasonable accommodations. Employers must provide reasonable accommodations to help disabled employees perform their jobs.
But pregnancy is not a disability. You cannot request a reasonable accommodation just because you are pregnant.
You can, however, request a reasonable accommodation for a pregnancy-related medical condition. Your pregnancy-related medical condition may still be protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
This is not, by any means, an exact formula that you must follow. However, written communication is always better than verbal. You can, of course, have a verbal conversation with HR.
You should also look out for pregnancy-related harassment [internal].
If you believe that pregnancy-related discrimination, harassment, or retaliation has occurred, you need to start documenting everything. This means that you should document negative emails, comments, summarize negative phone calls, take notes of incidents, etc.
You should not record anyone unless you have already spoken with a lawyer. And you should email yourself – if allowed by company policy – all documentation.
Emails have time stamps and metadata attached to them that show when they were sent. If the documents contain confidential business information, however, then they should not be emailed, as this could be seen by the company as you trying to steal company secrets.
Timestamps and metadata are our friends in court. It is also recommended that everything should be saved in an organized place, such as a cloud service like Dropbox, GoogleDrive, or an external hard drive so that it is easily accessible.
Cloud services make it easy to search for information even years down the road It is important to remember that there might be a long time between the report of discrimination and the lawsuit.
Pregnancy discrimination is one type of unlawful workplace discrimination. Depending on your circumstances, you may also have claims involving another protected characteristic. Learn more about these related discrimination claims.
Employees age 40 and older are protected from discrimination in hiring, promotions, compensation, and termination under federal law.
Federal law prohibits discrimination because of race, ethnicity, or characteristics associated with race.
Employees are protected from discrimination based on their birthplace, ancestry, accent, ethnicity, or cultural background.
Pregnancy discrimination is considered a form of sex discrimination, but employees may also experience broader gender discrimination affecting promotions, compensation, or workplace opportunities.
Employees have the right to work free from discrimination based on sincerely held religious beliefs and may be entitled to reasonable workplace accommodations.
Federal law protects employees from discrimination because of their sexual orientation.
Pregnancy discrimination cases often involve multiple employment law issues. Depending on the facts of your case, you may have additional legal claims beyond pregnancy discrimination.
Employees may have additional rights to unpaid, job-protected leave during pregnancy, childbirth, and recovery.
Although pregnancy itself is generally not a disability, pregnancy-related medical conditions may qualify for reasonable accommodations under the ADA.
If your employer punished you for reporting pregnancy discrimination or requesting protected leave, you may have a retaliation claim.
If you were fired because of your pregnancy or after exercising your legal rights, you may also have a wrongful termination claim.
Federal civil rights laws prohibit pregnancy discrimination and protect employees from unlawful treatment in the workplace.
The law protects the rights of pregnant employees. You have every right to do the same meaningful work that you did before you became pregnant.
Oftentimes, employers forget this fact. Luckily, the law is on your side. If you suspect discrimination, remember, you should say something. You should inform your employer, and going to HR is always a good idea. But, as always, it’s best to begin by calling a lawyer.
Most pregnancy discrimination lawyers give free consultations at no charge to you. They also generally take cases on contingency, which means that there is no fee unless you recover.
What are you going to do to resolve discrimination at work?
Our Pittsburgh and Philadelphia pregnancy discrimination lawyers are here to help.
We take many cases on a contingency basis—so you don’t pay unless we win. Reach out and let’s see what’s possible for your situation.