Nancy Gunzenhauser Popper, Member of the Firm in the Employment, Labor & Workforce Management practice, in the firm’s New York office, was quoted in Law360 Employment Authority, in “Anti-Abortion Groups Flood Pregnancy Law Comment Forum,” by Anne Cullen. (Read the full version – subscription required.)
Following is an excerpt:
Prewritten statements against abortion promoted by two Roman Catholic groups account for a vast majority of the thousands of comments the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has received so far on its draft Pregnant Workers Fairness Act regulations.
Templates proffered by conservative advocacy groups Catholic Vote and the Colorado Catholic Conference make up more than 16,000 of the nearly 17,500 comments the commission has received so far on its proposed blueprint for carrying out the PWFA.
The new law, a bipartisan measure that took effect in June, requires employers to offer workplace adjustments to workers who are pregnant or who have a condition related to pregnancy or childbirth.
The potential modifications can include the ability to sit, carry a water bottle, take breaks, temporarily skip certain potentially dangerous job duties or take time off. Consistent with decades of case law on existing worker protections, the EEOC listed abortion among the covered conditions in its draft PWFA regulations unveiled earlier this month.
Three weeks into the two-month comment window — which began Aug. 11 and closes Oct. 10 — abortion is dominating the conversation, a campaign spearheaded largely by Catholic Vote with some help from the Colorado Catholic Conference. …
Should abortion remain in the final PWFA regulations — which experts largely expect it will — management-side attorneys said they expect that time off to undergo and recover from the procedure will be the most common accommodation request that companies will field related to abortion.
“My guess is what’s most likely going to be the accommodation request is a schedule change or time off,” said Epstein Becker Green member Nancy Gunzenhauser Popper. “I think that’s practically how it’s going to come about.”
