The Pregnant Staff Equity Act (PWFA), which grew to become efficient in June 2023, requires coated employers to supply job-related lodging to workers for work limitations they expertise because of being pregnant, childbirth or associated medical circumstances. (See our prior protection right here.) For the reason that PWFA’s enactment, the U.S. Equal Employment Alternative Fee (EEOC) issued laws explaining employer obligations underneath the legislation, together with, particularly, the responsibility to take part in an interactive dialogue with coated workers to be able to determine and implement affordable lodging for pregnancy- and childbirth-related limitations.
As employers already ought to be acquainted from the analogous affordable lodging obligation for bodily and psychological well being disabilities underneath the People with Disabilities Act (ADA), the interactive course of is commonly facilitated when an worker’s well being care supplier presents documentation relating to the patient-employee’s want for lodging, the probably advantage of such lodging(s) and the anticipated time interval for which such lodging ought to be supplied. Healthcare supplier documentation is equally useful in crafting affordable lodging underneath the PWFA. Subsequently, on December 18, 2024, the EEOC launched casual steerage on how healthcare suppliers can finest help their sufferers in searching for lodging underneath the PWFA.
Highlights from the steerage—which isn’t the results of notice-and-comment rulemaking however is nonetheless edifying—embrace the next:
• The EEOC encourages healthcare suppliers to be told about, and to inform their sufferers about, the PWFA, together with that sufferers could also be entitled to lodging for pregnancy- or childbirth-related limitations, even when their situation is “minor, modest, or episodic.”
• The company additionally encourages healthcare suppliers to assume flexibly, reminding them that the PWFA doesn’t limit what sufferers can ask for as affordable lodging. To assist within the strategy of figuring out affordable lodging, the EEOC proposes some choices to think about, comparable to coverage modifications, elevated break time, modifying or acquiring new or totally different work tools, adjusting costume codes and work schedules, providing telework or mild responsibility and offering leaves of absence to attend healthcare appointments or to get well from childbirth. The EEOC additionally reminds that, not like affordable lodging underneath the ADA, which typically doesn’t require this step, the PWFA expressly contemplates the non permanent suspension of a essential job responsibility, or “important perform,” as an inexpensive lodging for pregnancy- or childbirth-related limitations.
• The EEOC additionally presents healthcare suppliers sensible recommendation on full medical paperwork, if requested by the affected person’s employer, together with (a) explaining the supplier’s skilled {qualifications}; (b) confirming the affected person’s bodily or psychological situation (though no formal analysis is required); (c) confirming the situation is said to, affected by, arising out of or exacerbated by being pregnant, childbirth or associated medical circumstances; (d) describing the adjustment wanted at work because of the limitation, together with the anticipated length of the lodging, and, if the lodging is the non permanent elimination of a job responsibility, affirmatively stating the worker will be capable to resume such responsibility after the situation resolves. As to this final level, the company advises healthcare suppliers to not “overstate the necessity for a selected lodging in case another is important,” and to be accessible to their sufferers to overview different lodging prompt by employers.
• Lastly, the EEOC encourages healthcare suppliers to know the intersection between the PWFA, the Being pregnant Discrimination Act, the ADA, the Household and Medical Go away Act and the PUMP Act. Every statute gives totally different treatments, has totally different protection and eligibility necessities, gives totally different worker safety and should require totally different info from suppliers.
The EEOC’s steerage imposes no formal authorized obligations on healthcare suppliers however nonetheless underscores the precious function that medical documentation can play in elucidating employer obligations to help their pregnant and childbearing workers. It additionally gives helpful info to employers in crafting medical documentation requests, elucidating what sorts of info can and can’t be requested in reference to a PWFA lodging request.