The Historic New Law Protecting Fairness for Pregnant Workers

Today marks a historic moment in the lives of our nation’s pregnant workers: after more than a decade of advocacy on Capitol Hill, the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA), signed by President Biden in December 2022, goes into effect. PWFA mandates “reasonable accommodations” for pregnant workers unless providing them would impose an “undue hardship” on their employer. For millions of U.S. workers, the new law promises to assure they no longer will have to choose between their paycheck and a healthy pregnancy. Pregnancy is a normal condition of employment; more than 80 percent of all working women will have at least one child during their lives. But existing legal protections have been glaringly insufficient for workers whose duties may conflict with pregnancy’s physical realities — such as cashiers (prolonged standing), nurses (repetitive heavy lifting), custodians (exposure to chemicals), and firefighters (battling potentially lethal blazes). Under the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA), enacted in 1978, pregnant workers have been entitled to temporary job modifications only if their employer provides them to others “similar in their ability or inability to work.” That language long has been used to deny needed “accommodations” to pregnant workers, on the grounds that favored non-pregnant colleagues are insufficiently “similar.” ACLU client Michelle Durham sued her employer after being given a discriminating ultimatum. Credit: John Mofield Even after the Supreme Court’s 2015 Young v. United Parcel Service, Inc. ruling clarified that employers must have a compelling reason for denying accommodations to pregnant workers while granting them to others, employers — and judges — continued to withhold them. One study found that more than two-thirds of workers brought PDA failure-to-accommodate claims after Young lost their court cases. ACLU client Michelle Durham was one of them. In March 2015, Michelle learned that she was pregnant with her first child. Michelle’s doctor told her not to lift anything over 50 pounds; because Michelle’s job duties as an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) regularly required that she lift patients and stretchers far heavier than that, she asked her employer, Rural/Metro Corporation — a company providing medical care to underserved communities — to temporarily reassign her. What happened next derailed Michelle’s life, and propelled her into the spotlight as an advocate for pregnant workers’ rights. Rural/Metro gave Michelle an ultimatum: Keep lifting heavy loads in violation of her doctor’s orders or go on an unpaid leave of absence for 90 days — after which she would be fired unless she returned to work. With six months to go until her due date, Michelle was terrified; she desperately needed her paycheck. As she later put it, testifying in support of PWFA before Congress, “I wouldn’t trade the experience of being [a] mom for anything. But I will never be able to get back those months before and after [my son] was born, when all I could think about was what I was losing by being pregnant — not what I was gaining.” Ultimately, Michelle left Rural/Metro rather than risk her pregnancy. She had to move in with her grandmother, racked up credit card debt, and incurred crushing hospital bills when she delivered her son. After filing a lawsuit, Michelle ultimately reached a settlement with Rural/Metro that provided some relief for the hardship she had experienced. The bad news is that her legal battle took 7 years, in part due to a federal judge’s ruling that, under the PDA, Michelle was not “similar” to EMTs with occupational injuries. The ACLU won reversal of that decision on appeal, but the same judge reached a similarly erroneous conclusion at a later stage of the case. As detailed in a new explainer on PWFA’s protections — co-authored by the ACLU and the Center for WorkLife Law — pregnant people needing accommodation no longer must identify “similar” non-pregnant co-workers. Modeled on the Americans with Disabilities Act, employers must grant pregnant workers an accommodation so long as it is “reasonable” and does not impose an “undue hardship” on the employer. Such clarity will aid workers and their employers alike in reaching mutually-agreeable solutions, with less cost and disruption — not to mention delay — than litigation. As Michelle Durham put it before Congress, “Pregnant workers need to be able to point to the law, in real time, to make their employers do the right thing so that a long-fought lawsuit isn’t necessary.” She added, “My employer could have kept me on the job, but it didn’t — because it didn’t think it had to.” Starting today, Congress has left no doubt that they do. We need you with us to keep fighting Donate today

Trump's Attempt to Unilaterally Control State and Local Funding is Dangerous, Dumb, and Undemocratic

The Trump administration has not been subtle in its desire to use federal funding for political punishment. Whether threatening to cut off grants to sanctuary cities, to block financial assistance to states that push back against the president’s demands, or to freeze all federal grants and loans for social services across the country, Trump and his allies want us to believe they can wield the federal budget like a weapon. The reality is that the administration’s ability to withhold or condition funding is far more limited than they let on. The Constitution, Supreme Court precedent, and long-standing federal law stand firmly in the way of this brazen abuse of presidential power. Trump’s Attempted Funding Freeze? Blocked Immediately A week into his second administration, Trump attempted to freeze trillions of dollars in federal grants and loans that fund a vast array of critical services already approved by Congress. If allowed to go into effect, this unprecedented and far-reaching...

Documents Reveal Confusion and Lack of Training in Texas Execution

As Texas seeks to execute Carl Buntion today and Melissa Lucio next week, it is worth reflecting on the grave and irreversible failures that occurred when the state executed Quintin Jones on May 19, 2021. For the first time in its history — and in violation of a federal court’s directive and the Texas Administrative Code — Texas excluded the media from witnessing the state’s execution of Quintin Jones. In the months that followed, Texas executed two additional people without providing any assurance that the underlying dysfunction causing errors at Mr. Jones’ execution were addressed. This is particularly concerning given that Texas has executed far more people than any other state and has botched numerous executions. The First Amendment guarantees the public and the press have a right to observe executions. Media access to executions is a critical form of public oversight as the government exerts its power to end a human life. Consistent with Texas policy, two reporters travelled t...

The Supreme Court Declined a Protestors' Rights Case. Here's What You Need to Know.

The Supreme Court recently declined to hear a case, Mckesson v. Doe , that could have affirmed that the First Amendment protects protest organizers from being held liable for illegal actions committed by others present that organizers did not direct or intend. The high court’s decision to not hear the case at this time left in place an opinion by the Fifth Circuit, which covers Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas, that said a protest organizer could be liable for the independent, violent actions of others based on nothing more than a showing of negligence. Across the country, many people have expressed concern about how the Supreme Court’s decision not to review, or hear, the case at this stage could impact the right to protest. The ACLU, which asked the court to take up the case, breaks down what the court’s denial of review means. What Happened in Mckesson v. Doe? The case, Mckesson v. Doe , was brought by a police officer against DeRay Mckesson , a prominent civil rights activi...

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