Recent changes to employment law at both the federal and New York state levels affect pregnancy and maternity at work. This topic comes up frequently with employers of all sizes and types so it’s good to review and update your policies and plans to support working mothers. Employers have three issues to consider:
- accommodations for the pregnant employee while she is working,
- leave time after the baby is born, and
- assisting the nursing mother after she returns to work.
Accommodations for Pregnant Employees
The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) is a new federal law that went into effect on June 27, 2023. The law applies to all employers with 15 or more employees, but it provides good guidelines that even smaller-sized employers should consider. Check out a webinar, poster, and a helpful infographic to learn more. The possible accommodations for a pregnant woman are reasonable for most employers and include items such as:
- Being able to sit or drink water
- Receiving closer parking
- Having flexible hours
- Receiving appropriately sized uniforms and safety apparel
- Receiving additional break time to use the bathroom, eat, and rest
- Taking leave or time off to recover from childbirth
- Being excused from strenuous activities and/or exposure to chemicals not safe for pregnancy
Of course, this all depends on what exactly your employee does in her job. Get input from your employee about exactly what accommodations she needs.
Both federal law and New York law provide employment protections for pregnant employees. It is illegal to discriminate against a woman because she is pregnant.
Leave time
Employers in the U.S. with 50+ employees have to follow the federal Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA). FMLA provides for up to 12 workweeks of unpaid leave after a child is born, health benefits maintained while the employee is away, and that employees must be able to return to the same or similar job, see the FMLA website for details. Smaller employers often follow the guidelines of FMLA for their family leave policies because it is increasingly a necessary part of a competitive benefits package.
Essentially all New York employers are required to provide paid family leave (PFL) for employees. New York’s PFL is an insurance program that employers and employees pay into, and this fund then pays out benefits to cover 67% of an employee’s average weekly wage when they take leave from work for a variety of reasons including bonding with a newborn child for up to 12 weeks. New York’s PFL also requires employers to allow employees to return to the same job after the leave, maintain health insurance during the leave, and prohibits discrimination or retaliation against employees for taking paid family leave.
Accommodation for Nursing Mothers
Once your employee returns to work, she is likely to be nursing for a while. Federal law includes the Providing Urgent Maternal Protections for Nursing Mothers Act (PUMP Act) which provides nursing employees the rights to receive break time to pump and a private place to pump at work. Further, the “Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) requires employers to provide reasonable break time for an employee to express breast milk for their nursing child for one year after the child’s birth each time such employee has need to express the milk. Employees are entitled to a place to pump at work, other than a bathroom, that is shielded from view and free from intrusion from coworkers and the public.”
New York state law provides further protections for nursing mothers for breast milk expression in the workplace. This law applies to all New York employers. Please see the detailed factsheets on the NYS Department of Labor’s website for more information.
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By Richard Stup, Cornell University. Permission granted to repost, quote, and reprint with author attribution.
The post Pregnancy and Maternity at Work appeared in The Ag Workforce Journal
