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Podcast: Consistency Is Key to Complying With Pregnancy Accommodation Laws

There is no question that pregnancy accommodation laws are on the rise, with new measures in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Nevada, among others. On this podcast, Boston employment attorney Cathy Reuben, of Hirsch Roberts Weinstein, discusses this growing trend and what's been the driving force behind these measures.

"If you're going to treat pregnant workers differently than another group, you had better have a darn good reason," says Reuben. The idea behind these laws, she notes, is consistency of treatment without regard to why an individual cannot carry out a particular job function.

Consistency Is Key to Complying With Pregnancy Accommodation Laws

September 13, 2017

Reuben stresses that company policies should advise employees to go to HR with pregnancy accommodation requests rather than their supervisor. "Supervisors can bungle this," says Reuben. "They don't realize that across the plant floor another supervisor is allowing what they are saying no to." As a result, she advises that the best thing HR can do is set up a system in which accommodation requests get channeled through HR to ensure that an interactive process takes place and that the responses remains consistent across the company.

Additional Resources

Pregnancy Accommodation Laws by State and Municipality

Pregnancy in the Workplace - Supervisor Training

How to Prevent Pregnancy Discrimination

Transcript