3 Crucial Employment Law Rights For Pregnant Employees

Employees are often hesitant to have children because they think doing so threatens their job and income. However, California labor laws ensure that pregnant employees aren’t mistreated by setting employment laws and opportunities for wronged employees to fight back.

So, let’s look at the 3 vital employment, discrimination, and employee benefits laws in California that you need to know:

3 Important Pregnant Employee Rights In California

As a pregnant employee, you benefit from the following California employment laws and policies:

1. Employees Can’t Be Fired For Their Pregnancy

Employers cannot fire a worker for the sole reason of being or planning to be pregnant. Doing so will qualify the action as a form of discrimination, allowing an aggrieved employee to file claims and receive compensation for the financial and emotional losses resulting from the illegal action.

Additionally, wrongful termination of an employee based on pregnancy still applies to at-will working agreements. So, even if you’re at-will—which means your employer could fire you at any time, even for no reason at all—firing you for discrimination still makes it viable for employment claims in California. This is because wrongful termination is considered illegal, regardless of at-will employment agreements with your boss.

So, even if your boss can fire you for no reason, they can’t fire you for discriminatory reasons. That said, you would need to prove that the real reason for firing you was your pregnancy, so you might want to keep some evidence or hire a California Pregnancy Discrimination Lawyer to help you with it.

2. Pregnancy Is Considered A Temporary Disability In California

Pregnant employees suffer a lot of symptoms that could hamper their ability to do their work. Like disabled employees, they have the right to request accommodations that would assist in the difficulties they experienced.

Some examples of these accommodations include:

• Mobility tools like wheelchairs, ramps, etc.

• Disabled, seniors, and pregnant parking spaces, bathrooms, etc.

• Allowing changes in working times, like reduced working times, different schedules, etc.

• Temporarily moving an employee to a different office

• Allowing an employee to work from home

That said, these should be reasonable accommodations. In other words, the requests shouldn’t cause undue difficulty for the employer. So, for example, if an employee requests an elevator to be built, an employer who will suffer significant losses doing such has the right to negotiate a different accommodation. Instead, the employee and their employer should work together to find ways to accommodate their temporary disability without causing undue difficulties.

3. Employers Cannot Try To Get Back At You

Unfortunately, employees still hesitate to report or complain about their employers, even with employment rights that protect them. However, this is considered an act of retaliation in California, so you can file claims against your employer for doing so.

Some pregnancy-related actions you can take include:

• Requesting reasonable accommodations

• Filing for medical or family leave

• Reporting your boss to the EEOC, DFEH, or OSHA

For example, if an employer demotes you for reporting a case of employment discrimination, noncompliance with reasonable accommodation laws, or OSHA violations, that is now considered an act of retaliation.

Acts of retaliation can include the following:

• Termination

• Demotions

• Pay cuts

• Giving you unfavorable working hours

• Excluding you from company functions

• Deliberately assigning you to difficult store locations

If you’ve been retaliated against due to anything related to your pregnancy, you’ll have the right to file claims and hire a California Employment Lawyer.

Know Your Labor Law Rights In California

California labor laws don’t only protect you from acts of discrimination, but they ensure you’re able to file claims without fearing retaliation and personal losses. As long as you gather the proper evidence, file the right paperwork, and meet crucial deadlines, you will be protected and awarded damages for the difficulties you experience.a