The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act Saved Me!

In January 2022, I got pregnant. After two miscarriages, the pregnancy was an unexpected gift. My son was 17 years old at the time and I just thought it wasn’t in the cards for me to have another child. 

I wanted to have a gender reveal, but even that was a source of concern, since my previous pregnancy ended in a miscarriage just before the gender reveal and I felt like a part of me had disappeared. To make matters worse, even though I had emergency surgery, was emotionally distraught, and lost the baby, my job did not grant my disability status right away. Ultimately, my employer clawed back half of my disability pay, adding to my devastation. 

We had the gender reveal and I was really excited: I couldn’t wait to meet my daughter! She was due in October 2022, at the same point when my job required that everyone return to work in the office. However, for health reasons, my doctor suggested that I continue to work from home for the two weeks before my scheduled c-section. The doctor had to speak with my employer five times before they would approve it. 

The birth was magical and then I met her: my perfect little girl. 

Once I went home, with no around the clock care, I became overwhelmed. I couldn’t care for myself–it became harder and harder–so I reached out to the doctor and sought help for postpartum depression. I ended up on disability again, yet my job kept denying my claims. My partner and I broke up and it was a very difficult time. For sure, I was at my lowest point. 

Despite my depression and with the baby a few months old, my doctor suggested a reasonable accommodation for transitioning back to work under the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) that had recently gone into effect. I spent more than four months jockeying between the disability advisors and Human Resources (HR) trying to get my status changed from disability to pregnancy accommodation with work from home. To be clear, I am a Telecommunications Specialist for AT&T and my job is easily done remotely. In fact, we had been working remotely since the pandemic and once it was safe to return in person, remote work became a collective bargaining issue. However under the PWFA all workers have access to reasonable accommodations for pregnancy-related health matters.

Months passed before my accommodation was approved. During that time I lost all of my accrued time. For months, the HR department delayed the process. The final straw was a meeting with HR and my manager where they openly discussed my health issues, then denied my request for an accommodation, and instructed me to either go back out on disability or take an unpaid leave of absence.

It was clear that I would have to educate CWA and AT&T about the provisions under the PWFA. In the end, the union filed grievances for the vacation time that was used up as I waited for their decision about the accommodation. Also, I filed a manual charge against my employer with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) for violating my disability by stealing my vacation time, when a reasonable accommodation was in fact available to me.

I share this information because I want others to know about my difficult experience. Currently, my work-from-home accommodation is evolving. My employer advised that I gradually return to work in-person months sooner than I planned. In a few months, I’ll be back to a full-time, in-person schedule.  

It’s been a journey. My health has improved and this schedule can work but I’ve spent the better part of my disability and accommodation period fighting, negotiating, and organizing to get the time that I deserve. It should not be this hard. I must thank Carol Joyner, Family Values @ Work Action, and A Better Balance for their education and assistance on my rights with the PWFA. It is from my conversations with them that I persevered. 

1. 1. Educate: Make sure your employer understands the provisions of the  Pregnant Workers Fairness Act and posts the required information for all workers to see.
   2. Codify: For union members make sure your union plans to codify the PWFA into your collective bargaining agreement. 
   3. Plan: Create a plan for requesting a reasonable accommodation and make sure you share your plan and any formal requests with your doctor, union or worker association.
   4. Insist: The PWFA transforms how we think about work and it is intended for all childbearers. You may have to insist on the accommodation and use legal expertise for back-up. 
   5. Take Action: Right now, there is a campaign to eliminate a key provision of the PWFA that permits people to take temporary leave as an accommodation. Call, email or write your member of Congress and tell them to stay strong –  PWFA must be here to stay.