Equality in the workforce would be impossible without proper acknowledgement and accommodations for employees who are pregnant or nursing. The inherent physical demands of the condition were long used an excuse to discriminate against these workers. Then in 1978, the federal government passed the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, making it illegal…
A California pregnancy discrimination lawsuit failed when both a trial and appellate court agreed that a requested accommodation for job stress reduction was not “reasonable” for an employee working in a high-demand role at a non-profit domestic violence shelter. Before we dive into why the court decided as it did…
New protections are now in place for workers who are pregnant or nursing. These federal protections were signed into law as the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) and the Providing Urgent Maternal Protections for Nursing Mothers Act (PUMP Act). As our Los Angeles employment attorneys can explain, these statutes expand…
As an L.A. employment lawyer, we’ve fielded a fair number of questions about the legality of lay-offs or termination of an employee who is on maternity leave or parental leave. The answer isn’t always cut-and-dried, depending a fair bit on the specific circumstances of the case. Of course, losing a…
Discrimination of pregnant workers is unlawful in California workplaces – an important protection given that women make up half the workforce and 85 percent of working women will become mothers at some point in their careers. And yet, research shows that over the last decade, there have been more than…
When it comes to California pregnancy discrimination, it’s rarely as obvious as your boss saying, “You’re being fired because you’re pregnant.” That can lead many who have experienced pregnancy discrimination to second-guess themselves, and whether their experience was, in fact, discriminatory and based on their protected status as a pregnant…
One would think that as workplaces become more progressive and inclusive that pregnancy-based discrimination would increasingly become an issue of the past. Unfortunately, pregnancy discrimination, harassment, and retaliation in California workplaces have continued to rise the past five years. The U.S. Department of labor reports 85 percent of women will…
A former employee alleges Amazon’s pregnancy discrimination against her and failure to provide accommodations led her to suffer a miscarriage. According to Vice, the packer was 7 weeks pregnant when she suffered a miscarriage at the fulfillment center where she worked. In the weeks prior, she said she’d begged her…
It’s been less than one year since the U.S. Supreme Court waded into the question of pregnancy discrimination versus religious rights in a case involving a Catholic school and its teachers. In the 7-2 ruling, the court held that federal employment discrimination laws aren’t applicable at church-run schools to teachers…
Pregnant workers have long faced discrimination in the workplace. California has some of the strongest protections for pregnant workers, but our employment discrimination lawyers in L.A. know employees in the rest of the country has not been so fortunate. That could soon change, if a new bill moving through the…