Article · Labor and Employment

Pregnancy Discrimination and Accommodation After the PWFA

Type
Article
Jurisdiction
National
Date
2025-05-26
Topic
Labor and Employment

For forty-five years the central question in pregnancy-at-work law was comparative: is the pregnant employee being treated the same as everyone else? The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act of 2023 and the EEOC's 2024 final rule changed the question to an affirmative one: is she being accommodated? This library article traces the whole system, from the Pregnancy Discrimination Act's equal-treatment command and the Supreme Court's proof framework in Young v. UPS through the PWFA's ADA-style accommodation duty, the four "predictable assessments," and the contested abortion provision now in litigation. It maps how the PUMP Act, the FMLA, the ADA, and a thickening layer of state statutes stack on top of one another, and it works through invented hypotheticals, the EEOC charge process, remedies, and damages caps. Written so a judge can check a cite, an HR director can build a policy, and an expectant employee can understand her rights, it flags the places where the law is still moving.

Pregnancy Discrimination and Accommodation After the PWFA

Labor and Employment > Discrimination | Published 26 May 2025 - Updated 20 July 2025 | UpLaw - uplaw.us

An employee who threw out her back lifting a couch could demand a stool and a lighter load; an employee whose back ached at twenty-eight weeks pregnant often could not. For decades federal law made that distinction. The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act erased it, converting a comparative rule into an affirmative duty to accommodate. This article maps the layered system that governs pregnant and postpartum workers now.

Keywords: pregnancy discrimination, Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, PWFA, EEOC 2024 rule, reasonable accommodation, Young v. UPS, Pregnancy Discrimination Act, interactive process, predictable assessments, undue hardship, PUMP Act, lactation, FMLA, ADA, Title VII, damages caps

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