But it’s hard to celebrate the holiday fully knowing what we do about discrimination against pregnant women and caretakers in the workplace. This year’s Mother’s Day marks one year since ERA released its groundbreaking report on pregnancy discrimination: Expecting a Baby, Not a Layoff.

Three-quarters of working women will be pregnant at some point during their careers. ERA regularly hears from women who are discriminated against because of their pregnancy.

It came as a surprise to Hannah, a day laborer at a large manufacturing plant in Ohio, when her employer denied her a temporary ‘light duty’ assignment after she became pregnant. Hannah had noticed that many male workers had been given such assignments in the past, but her manager told her that she only provided light duty assignments for those employees injured on the job, and that if she brought a doctor’s note requesting accommodation she would be forced to go on medical leave.  She was also told that she was not eligible for job-protected leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act.

This was wrong. Her employer could have found a temporary light duty assignment for Hannah, as it did for many employees who were injured on the job or to those who had “disabilities” under the Americans with Disabilities Act. But Hannah was left with the decision of continuing to work in an un-accommodated position, thus jeopardizing the health of her pregnancy, or losing her job and the financial stability and health care benefits that came with it.   Hannah lost her job during her second trimester.  Single and without financial support, she had to depend on the government to keep food on the table.

Stories like Hannah’s are all too common among many pregnant women across the country.  Take Angie, a train conductor in Mississippi who was forced on unpaid leave due to a minor lifting restriction that could have easily been accommodated by her employer, who readily provided such accommodation to (mostly male) employees injured on the job. Or Peggy, a pregnant postal worker in Maryland who was similarly denied the temporary light duty potion that the employer readily provided to those injured on the job.

Although the text of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act declares that employers must treat pregnant employees at least as well as they treat other employees “similar in their ability or inability to work,” courts have found employers may do otherwise.  Although the Americans with Disabilities Act requires employers to provide reasonable accommodation to qualified employees with a disability, courts have found that such protections only extend to pregnant women with certain conditions.

America needs the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act to ensure that our pregnant workers are not denied the simple and temporary workplace accommodations that would keep our women and families healthy and financially independent, and that would keep our new generations secure.  That is why Senators Bob Casey and Jeanne Shaheen and Representative Jerry Nadler will reintroduce the bill on May 14, 2013, with support from a wide array of health organizations, women’s organizations, and disability rights organizations.

Would you like to share your story about a workplace pregnancy accommodation, or denial of a request for such an accommodation?  Contact Mia Munro at mmunro@equalrights.org or post a comment on this page.  And check out our PWFA action page for more information on you can help pass this important bill into law.

The Healthy Families Act would help America’s workers to meet the real health needs of themselves and their families by giving them the right to earn paid sick days at work.

Specifics: The bill would allow employees who work for employers with 15 or more employees to earn up to seven paid sick days each year (earning one hour for every 30 hours worked) to:

• Care for themselves when they are ill, or access preventative care
• Care for themselves and seek assistance when they have been a victim of domestic violence or sexual assault
• Care for a sick family member

So important:  Too many Americans are forced to choose between keeping themselves or a family member healthy  and their paycheck.  Forty percent of the private sector workforce in the United States is excluded from the opportunity to earn paid sick days at work.  Even more cannot get paid time off to care for a sick family member.  Almost a quarter of American adults are threatened with job loss for taking time off from work to care for themselves or a sick family member.  Women are particularly impacted by the inability to earn paid sick time, as they disproportionately assume caregiving responsibilities for children.  The Healthy Families Act would provide American working families with the financial security they need to take time off to attend to their health needs.

Policies work:  California’s experience with paid family leave and sick leave demonstrate that providing workers with access to such leave is not only important to workers, but is also important for public health, and that such laws do not hurt businesses.  A comprehensive study demonstrated that San Francisco’s sick leave ordinance has improved outcomes for all players.  A second study demonstrated the same for California’s Paid Family Leave Program.

To support the Healthy Families Act, contact your local congressperson.

For information on efforts to increase protections for working families in California, visit the California Work & California’s website.

The Healthy Families Act was originally introduced in Congress in 2011 by Senator Harkin and Representative DeLaura.  The National Partnership for Women and Working Families and a coalition of women’s rights organizations support the bill.

• Ending Caregiver Discrimination in California: ERA is leading the effort to pass a California bill, SB 404, that would include “familial status” as a protected status under the employment discrimination provisions of the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA). This bill would clarify that an employer may not discriminate against an employee based on his or her family responsibilities, and would ensure that employers do not base employment decisions on false and discriminatory stereotypes about caregivers as less committed, less capable, or less interested in jobs and advancement. The bill was introduced by Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson, and is co-sponsored by ERA. .
• Expanding Paid Family Leave To Include Caregiver Benefits for Siblings, Grandparents, Grandchildren, and Parents in Law: This year Senator Jackson  introduced SB 770 to allow workers to receive partial pay through California’s Paid Family Leave (PFL) program, when they must miss work to care for siblings, grandparents, grandchildren, and parents in law. The PFL program, which was the product of an statewide advocacy effort lead by ERA , currently provides partial pay to workers that miss work to care for parents, children, spouses, and domestic partners. The PFL program has been immensely successful in helping California’s traditional caregivers balance their family responsibilities with work. However, the PFL program has excluded a large portion of California’s caregiver population. SB 770 recognizes the reality that extended families and siblings are a crucial source of the caregiving provided to California’s people, and it expands the PFL program to ensure that California’s families receive the caregiving support they need without losing the income they need to survive. The bill is co-sponsored by Legal Aid Society – Employment Law Center, and supported by the California Work and Family Coalition.
• Prohibiting Employers from Retaliating Against Employees for Receiving Paid Family Leave Benefits: This year Senator Mark DeSaulnier introduced SB 761 to prohibit employers from discriminating against employees for obtaining or attempting to obtain Paid Family Leave (PFL) benefits. The PFL program currently does not protect workers from retaliation by employers for use of the PFL program. The bill thus provides an essential protection for California’s caregivers. Learn more.

• AB 218 (Dickinson), also known as the “Ban the box” bill, would ensure that state, city, and county job applicants are not forced to disclose their criminal conviction history in an initial job application.  The bill would ensure that those with conviction records are not foreclosed from obtaining employment in the early stages of the employment process, before they have a chance to demonstrate their qualifications for the job.  See the bill here.

• AB 651 (Bradford) would ensure that folks who complete a sentence under California’s new Realignment program have adequate access to reentry by clarifying that they are eligible to petition for set-aside relief (and expungement) under Penal Code section 1203.4.  Women are particularly impacted by California’s new Realignment program because they disproportionately represent those with low-level criminal convictions that qualify for local sentences under the program.  Access to expungement for these women is crucial.  AB 651 would fill a gap in the law, and would enable women to successfully find employment and housing after serving their sentences.  See the bill here.

Read ERA’s letters of support for the two bills, with more information on their importance, here and here.

State and federal prisons have seen a 122% increase in confined women since 1991. This represents part of the six-fold increase of women in the last three decades, as compared to threefold for men. In California, nearly 80% of women in jails and prisons are mothers, and many will resume their caregiving responsibilities upon release.

With AB 109, California’s realignment program, California has released thousands of women into the community, and will continue to do so.  Women disproportionately represent those who served time for non-violent crimes, and are thus are disproportionately impacted by AB 109.  The women released as a result of realignment have faced and continue to face numerous barriers to finding employment that would enable them to support themselves and their families upon release.

ERA’s Project:

Through an innovative project funded by Levi Strauss Foundation (Breaking Barriers), ERA has developed a project to help empower formerly incarcerated women with knowledge of their employment-related rights and with a voice to tell their stories through video and social media, and to expand their employment opportunities through policy change.  Through these efforts, we hope to not only improve the outcomes for the women seeking to reenter into society, but also for their children, their families, and their communities.

• ERA is producing a video tracing the stories of formerly incarcerated women in the San Francisco Bay area and the excessive barriers they face to economic stability and employment. Through the video we hope to inspire the public to support progressive criminal justice and realignment reform for women and formerly incarcerated people in California.
• ERA is collaborating with other organizations, such as the San Francisco Women’s Resource Center (run by the San Francisco Sherriff’s Department) and the National Employment Law Project, to provide women with criminal conviction histories with trainings about their rights.  Learn more here.
• ERA is working with a broad coalition of Bay area organizations to promote legislation and other strategies to remove employment obstacles faced by women with criminal convictions.  Learn more here.

ERA is working with diverse stakeholders and unlikely allies to inform all aspects of our project. Some of the stakeholders ERA has begun working with include:  the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office, the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office and Sherriff’s Department, the San Francisco Adult Probation Department, the San Francisco Reentry Council, Goodwill, the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, East Bay Community Law Center, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, the National Employment Law Project, and the Women’s Resource Center.

ERA has found a solution. Last year, ERA began an innovative project to provide information about workplace rights to pregnant workers through their health care providers. ERA had identified health care providers as an important and unique resource of legal information to pregnant workers because their relationship typically begins very early in the pregnancy, and continues throughout. Health care providers thus can help pregnant women plan for and obtain workplace accommodations and leaves early on. Further, ERA has discovered that health care providers themselves are not aware of their pregnant patients’ workplace rights. Armed with legal information, health care providers can act as advocates for the health of their patients when requesting accommodations and leaves.

In 2012, ERA teamed up with the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) to provide know-your-rights information to doctors and their patients. This year, ERA began teaming up with the Bay Area Medical community and UC Hastings [link to Hillary’s blog article] to provide trainings and informational material to pregnant women and their health care providers.

ERA is also working with the medical community to advocate for federal legislation that would increase protections for pregnant workers. For more information on the federal law, click here.

Fortunately for Rose, the California Fair Employment and Housing Commission recently issued amended regulations, effective on December 30, 2012, that clarify that employers must continue providing health insurance coverage during both pregnancy disability leave AND bonding leave under the California Family Rights Act. ERA was able to use those amended regulations to ensure that Rose could take the leave she needed without losing much needed health insurance coverage.

Pregnant workers and families across California will begin the new year with many important increased protections due to amendments to the regulations for the California Fair Employment and Housing Act. These amendments were informed by years of experience of a coalition of California legal services organizations (including ERA), that saw firsthand the issues that most pregnant workers face in the workplace. Below are some of the important changes that were made:

Clarification of the FEHA’s reasonable pregnancy accommodation requirement

• When an employer becomes aware that an employee might need a pregnancy accommodation, the employer must engage in a good faith conversation with a pregnant employee who needs an accommodation to identify a reasonable accommodation. This means that the employer cannot automatically and categorically deny the worker a pregnancy accommodation upon receiving a request, without discussing options and alternatives.
• The regulations now provide examples of reasonable pregnancy accommodation, including: providing break time and space for breast feeding or pumping, providing the employee with a sitting stool, modifying an employee’s work duties or schedule, and providing additional leave to an employee once she exhausts her four months of pregnancy disability leave.

Clarification of the FEHA’s pregnancy disability leave requirement

• Employees can be entitled to pregnancy disability leave for a broad array of pregnancy-related conditions, including: severe morning sickness, gestational diabetes, hypertension, preeclampsia, and post-partem depression.
• The only defense to failing to reinstate an employee when she returns from her pregnancy disability leave is if the employer has a legitimate business reason that is not related to the fact that the employee took the leave. The regulations no longer allow an employer to fail to reinstate an employee when holding her position open during her pregnancy disability leave would substantially undermine the business operations of the employer.
• It may be unlawful for an employer to force a pregnant employee on leave when the employee has not requested leave.

Clarification that employers must provide language appropriate notice to employees that are not English proficient.

If you are an employee that needs more information about your employer’s obligations to provide pregnancy accommodations or leave, please call ERA’s Advice and Counseling Hotline at 1-800-839-4ERA.