Originally published by The 19th
As of June 27, after more than a decade of advocacy, workplace accommodations for pregnant people are finally law as the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act takes effect.
The law, which passed in December, requires that employers provide accommodations for pregnancy-related medical conditions, everything from pregnancy to childbirth to postpartum recovery.
It undoes a previous requirement that said employees must prove they should be accommodated. Instead, the onus will now be on employers to work in good faith with workers to provide accommodations.
The idea to expand protections dates back to 2011, when Dina Bakst, the cofounder and co-president of A Better Balance: The Work & Family Legal Center, realized pregnant workers who were turning to the organization for help were not sufficiently covered under existing law. It was an issue of racial equity — many were women of color working in low-paying jobs.
Bakst wrote an op-ed in the New York Times in 2012 suggesting lawmakers pass a law that specifically granted pregnant people a right to accommodations at work rather than make them jump through hoops. The op-ed launched a movement that has been working since then to pass the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which was first introduced in Congress that year.
Elizabeth Gedmark, the current vice president at A Better Balance who worked with Bakst to do the initial legal research on the law, said the road to passage was difficult because so few...
Artem AdobeStock_1375944561 False claims about damaged or missing items are the most common form of returns fraud, affecting 62% of U.S. retailers, while shoppers increasingly abandon brands with ...