What You Should Know About the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act


Tuesday, September 19, 2023
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM Eastern Time Zone

Description

This session will provide an overview of the new federal EEO statute, the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA). The PWFA, effective June 27, 2023, requires covered entities to provide reasonable accommodations to a worker’s known limitations related to pregnancy, childbirth, and other related medical conditions, unless the accommodation would cause an undue hardship. Topics to be discussed include which entities and workers are covered by the PWFA; the definition of terms used in the PWFA; what employment practices are prohibited under the PWFA; and the PWFA’s relationship to other laws, among other topics.

To ensure your question is answered during the session, individuals are highly encouraged to submit their questions ahead of time via the registration website (the option to submit questions is available once you have registered for the session).

Notice on Materials: This session will include information on the Proposed Rule to Implement the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act. As this is currently a proposed rule and subject to change, handouts of the presentation will not be provided. Instead, a supplemental document with more information on the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, a list of resources discussed during the presentation, and a method to provide public comment on the proposed rule will be posted prior to the webinar.

Human Generated Real-Time Captioning will be provided for this session.

Continuing Education Recognition Available

Certificate Credit hours
Certificate of Attendance 1.5

Speakers:

Kerry Leibig, Senior Attorney Advisor, Office of Legal Counsel, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)

Questions for presenters:

1 Is there a time limit to when this law no longer covers post birth related conditions? For example: postpartum depression/anxiety can last for up to 3 years. If an employee requests modifications to their schedule due to postpartum depression/anxiety (maybe working 100% remote where a typical schedule is hybrid) how long is this protected? 6 months? 12? etc?
2 Are workers required to submit medical documentation in order to have their accommodations protected?
3 Are workers going through fertility treatment covered under this act?
4 Are spouses of pregnant people covered? For example if a spouse needs flexible hours to attend prenatal doctor appointments with their pregnant spouse.
5 I am the ADA coordinator. Should I be working with these employees or should HR be handling these requests? Is there any guidance in the statue on this?
6 Should employers issue written approval of accommodations citing approval under the PWFA since the accommodations may not be covered under the ADA?

Session Questions

This session is accepting questions from registered users. After you have registered to participate in this session you can submit your questions on your Account Manager page. Please note: the number of questions will be limited and submissions will be closed well before the session starts to provide time to prepare answers.