{"id":579,"date":"2019-05-25T21:00:55","date_gmt":"2019-05-25T15:30:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.complianceprime.com\/blog\/?p=579"},"modified":"2019-05-25T21:00:55","modified_gmt":"2019-05-25T15:30:55","slug":"rights-for-pregnant-workers-under-federal-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.complianceprime.com\/blog\/2019\/05\/25\/rights-for-pregnant-workers-under-federal-law\/","title":{"rendered":"Rights for Pregnant Workers Under Federal Law"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.complianceprime.com\/blog\/2019\/05\/24\/manage-motherhood-and-career-like-a-boss\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Motherhood<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> is a right of every woman, whether she is employed or not. The <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Civil Rights Act of 1964 delineates the right of every woman against <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">discrimination in employment for being pregnant or just for being a woman who is likely to become pregnant. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Any organization, which is employing more than 15 employees, is bound to abide by this right of women. The moot point of the policy is to discourage discrimination against women on account of pregnancy, childbirth, pregnancy related conditions, etc. It has termed pregnancy as a temporary medical condition which needs to be treated at par with any other medical condition. It is heartening to observe that not just feder5als laws; some state laws go even beyond the federal law and formulate policies for women. Yet, women find it tough to answer questions when they become pregnant, give birth to children or suffer from pregnancy-related complications. This is why women should have knowledge about the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.complianceprime.com\/details\/402\/pregnancy-lactation-hr\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">rights of pregnant women<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> under federal law. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Discrimination is Illegal <\/span><\/h2>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">There is a completely separate federal law for pregnant workers, and it owes its origin to the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eeoc.gov\/laws\/statutes\/pregnancy.cfm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Pregnancy Discrimination Act<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, 1978. This act, in turn, owes its origin to the Title VII of Civil Rights Act, 1964. In terms of this act, employers, employing at least 15 people, cannot discriminate against women employees for employing or for continuing employment, if she is &#8211;\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">pregnant;<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">had been pregnant;<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">likely to become pregnant<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">intend to get pregnant;<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">suffering from a medical condition that owes its origin to pregnancy;<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">suffered an abortion, or; <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">considering an abortion.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In essence, the Act protects you against being rejected, fired, promoted, or given less significant assignments. You cannot even be forced to take leave. Moreover, the employer should not post you in a kind of job that you may face difficulty in doing or completely unable to do or which poses a significant risk to your health.\u00a0Also, the employer\u00a0cannot\u00a0terminate your job citing that the job is risky for your health or pregnancy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Complaint Against Harassment <\/span><\/h2>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you think you are being harassed because of pregnancy or related medical condition, you need to tell it to your employer following the laid down reporting procedure.\u00a0The employer is legally bound to take action so that such harassment can be stopped.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Difficulty in Doing Certain Jobs<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you are finding it difficult to do a certain job owing to pregnancy or certain medical condition related to pregnancy, you are entitled to accommodation in a different position which would allow you to do your job without any safety hazard. If the company has a policy of accommodating people with physical limitations, you have an automatic right to change of position under the PDA, if you are suffering from any pregnancy-related condition like anemia, cervical insufficiency, sciatica, gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, depression, etc., which the ADA defines as &#8220;disability.&#8221;\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">When You Are No Longer Able To Work <\/span><\/h2>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you are no longer able to work even with the most adaptive accommodation, you are entitled for altered job duties. PDA can help pregnant women by making the employer reduce workload, remove a function of the assigned job, or something else if the employer has a policy of doing such things for employees with disabilities or limitations.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Motherhood is a right of every woman, whether she is employed or not. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 delineates the right of every woman against discrimination in employment for&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":580,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[52],"class_list":["post-579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hr-blog","tag-pregnancy-at-work"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.complianceprime.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.complianceprime.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.complianceprime.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.complianceprime.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.complianceprime.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.complianceprime.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.complianceprime.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.complianceprime.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.complianceprime.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.complianceprime.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}