While most of us were contending with the aftermath of the holiday season, on Dec. 29, 2022, President Joe Biden signed two important pieces of legislation protecting maternal rights in the workplace.
While the Providing Urgent Maternal Protections Act (the “PUMP Act”) went into effect immediately, amending the Fair Labor Standards Act to require employers to provide mothers with a private non-bathroom space to express breast milk and to compensate that time if the employee is simultaneously working, June 27 marks the effective date of the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (“PWFA”).
Both the PUMP Act and PWFA were enacted on a federal level and expand existing state and federal laws where gap filling is needed but neither act limits greater rights provided by state law.
The PWFA’s protections are similar to those provided by the Americans with Disabilities Act and makes it unlawful for an employer to refuse to provide a reasonable accommodation to a qualified employee’s known limitations related to pregnancy, childbirth or related medical condition.
Unlike the ADA, the condition underlying the requested accommodation need not be disabling. Instead, a condition only needs to be related to pregnancy or childbirth. Employers can raise as an affirmative defense to an employee’s action that the requested accommodation is an undue burden.
Remedies available to an employee who has had her PWFA rights violated mirror those available pursuant to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, including the award of compensatory and punitive damages as well as attorneys’ fees and costs.
Exhaustion of administrative remedies, such as filing a charge of discrimination, is required before filing suit. Employers with 15 or more employees as well as employers subject to anti-discrimination law are covered employers under the PWFA against whom a claim of a violation can be raised.
Thirty states already provide the rights protected by the PWFA, however, based on the broad recession from the U.S. Supreme Court’s Young v. UPS decision, which broadly interpreted the availability of accommodations necessary because of pregnancy, the codification of these rights is necessary to not only the 20 states offering limited protections under state law, but also the 30 states that already offer legislative protections.
Notably, while the Florida Civil Rights Act protects pregnant employees from workplace discrimination, Florida law does not provide for pregnancy accommodations nor breast feeding rights, underscoring the significance of the passage of the PWFA and the PUMP Act to Florida employers and employees.
Alex Underkofler is an attorney with Delegal & Poindexter focusing on labor and employment and administrative law.