Two generations ago, talking about pregnancy with anyone except your closest relatives was unthinkable. No one would dream of mentioning it in the workplace. Your grandparents might remember watching the old episodes of I Love Lucy in the 1950s, when the lead actress Lucille Ball’s pregnancy became too advanced to ignore, so the writers of the show incorporated the impending birth of her character’s child into the series. Even as Lucy wore maternity clothes on set for months, and her growing belly weighed down her trademark style of physical comedy, and even though the writers also eventually worked her baby into the storyline, no one said the word “pregnant.”
Today, new mothers can return, several months after the baby’s birth, to the jobs they held before they became mothers, although the minimum standards set by law for the concessions that employers must make to pregnant employees and to the mothers of infants are lower in the U.S. than they are in other wealthy countries. The Bozeman pregnancy discrimination lawyers at HKM Employment Attorneys LLP can help you if your employer took an adverse action against you after you disclosed your pregnancy or shortly after your baby’s birth.
Is Pregnancy a Disability?
According to federal law, pregnancy is a protected characteristic. This means that employers may not discriminate, based on their perceived pregnancy, against women who are pregnant or whom the employer believes are pregnant. Discrimination means taking an adverse action against the employee because of a protected characteristic. Examples of adverse actions include refusal to hire, unfairly negative performance reviews, hostile work environment, denial of promotions or raises, and termination of employment, among others.
The Montana Human Rights Act does not specifically list pregnancy as a protected characteristic, but if you experience pregnancy discrimination, you have grounds for a sex discrimination complaint; you can easily argue that your employer would not take the same adverse actions against a male employee if his wife were pregnant that your employer took against you after you notified your employer of your pregnancy. Marital status is also a protected characteristic. You might be able to cite marital status discrimination if your employer treated you differently, even before you disclosed your pregnancy, from how your employer treated unmarried women the same age as you.
Employment laws also give pregnant employees the right to reasonable accommodations, much as employees with disabilities can receive. In other words, the law treats pregnancy as a temporary disability, even if the letter of the law does not refer to it as a disability in so many words. When you tell your employer that you require accommodations because of your pregnancy, your employer is not required to give you everything you ask for, but they must negotiate with you until you agree on an accommodation that is satisfactory for you and affordable for your employer. For example, you might request to change your work schedule to accommodate the many prenatal appointments you must attend during the last weeks of your pregnancy. You might also request a leave of absence, or a temporary work from home arrangement if your job duties allow this, if your doctor instructs you to limit your activities or be on bed rest until you give birth. The accommodation might also be something as simple as being allowed to sit at your workstation when most employees stand.
The Rights of Pregnant Women in the Montana Workforce
Workers in Montana have the right to an unpaid leave of absence from work for health reasons or family caregiving reasons, including the birth of a child. Pursuant to the federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), you may take a leave of absence for up to 12 weeks after your baby’s birth. Your employer has no obligation to pay you while you are on FMLA leave, but they must allow you to return to your same job at your same rate of pay after the leave ends.
This is not to say that paid leave for new mothers, before or after the baby’s birth, does not exist in Montana. Employers are free to set their own policies about family leave. Your employment contract may contain provisions about family leave. Even if you are employed on an at-will basis, your employer may extend family leave benefits to all employees who have worked at the company for a certain amount of time.
What to Do if You Experience Pregnancy Discrimination
If your employer discriminates against you because of your pregnancy or any other protected characteristic, you have the right to file a discrimination complaint. To do this, document the adverse action and any other discriminatory acts you experienced after you notified your employer of your pregnancy, or after your pregnancy became noticeable but before you talked to your work supervisor or any of your coworkers about it. The next step is to open a preliminary complaint with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) or the Montana Human Rights Bureau. The Bureau or EEOC will then begin an investigation into your claim. It will attempt to verify your statements by interviewing other people at your workplace or requesting documents from them. It might find that not only did your employer discriminate against you, but that other employees at your company also experienced similar discrimination when they were pregnant or after they gave birth. You have the right to file complaints simultaneously with the Bureau and the EEOC and to have an employment discrimination lawyer represent you during this process.
If the Bureau or EEOC finds that your complaint has merit and there is sufficient evidence that you experienced pregnancy discrimination, it will give you authorization to file a lawsuit in court. Without written permission from the EEOC or the Bureau, the court will not consider your lawsuit.
Contact HKM About Pregnancy Discrimination
The Bozeman employment lawyers at HKM Employment Attorneys LLP can give you advice about filing a pregnancy discrimination complaint against your employer. Contact the employment lawyers at HKM Employment Attorneys LLP in Bozeman, Montana, to set up a consultation. Tell us about your case here.
