The Homeland Security Department has allegedly discriminated against certain pregnant women for years by forcing them to forfeit some of their duties, according to a lawsuit filed by a group of employees who were recently certified to bring their case as a class action.
The employees all worked at Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Field Operations at the time of the alleged discrimination. They brought their case before a field office of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which found in a recent ruling that any pregnant employee required to enter “temporary light duty,” or TLD, since July 2016 would be eligible to join the class.
According to agency policy and protections afforded by the 1978 Pregnancy Discrimination Act, pregnant employees should only enter light duty status if they request it. Instead, the complainants said, their supervisors required them to surrender some duties as soon as their pregnancies were disclosed. They said temporary light duty status offers fewer chances for overtime and other differential pay, lowers the chances of promotions, allows for fewer training opportunities, makes preferred schedules more difficult to earn and requires the surrendering of their right to carry a firearm. In some cases, they added, employees then have to requalify to carry their gun.
Pregnant employees were treated differently than others who went onto the temporary status, they said, as they were never provided an opportunity to prove they could...
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