All over America, pregnant women get a raw deal from their employers. But the low-wage airport workers of America, who I’ve met through my work as a researcher for a labor union, bear the brunt of it.
Take the example of “Angie”, who, in the spring of 2014, was cleaning planes for a subcontractor of a commercial airline. She was eight months pregnant and happy to have the job in a struggling economy. But her employer does not offer maternity leave; she only got paid as long as she worked, she was determined to continue to earn money. But one day, bending over to pick up a fallen piece of paper she felt the first pangs, a sharp piercing to her side, then the rush of her water breaking. She muttered a prayer, beads of sweat dropping to her lips. The pain shot urgently from her navel to her ankles. she felt her pants and panties grow damp with water. It was time. She needed to push.
Though Angie nearly gave birth on the job, her employer’s stance on pregnancy and reasonable accommodations did not change one bit. In the summer of 2014, Angie’s co-worker “Sheila”, a six-months-pregnant cabin cleaner, was working with two other co-workers to clean a plane between flights; one person took the front of the plane, another cleaned the overheads and Sheila did the lavatories. The ventilation on the plane was cut off and it was 100ºF outside on the tarmac. The lead cabin cleaner hollered at them to hurry up, saying that they needed to complete the job in seven minutes or the flight would be late and they would all get written up. Sheila said she was trying. Her co-worker stood up for her and said, “Hey don’t you see that she’s pregnant?”
And the supervisor said, “So? Angie worked all the way up until she had her baby.”
There is a case on the Supreme Court’s docket that could change lives like Sheila’s and Angie’s. The plaintiff is Peggy Young, who worked as a United Parcel Service (UPS) driver in Maryland. In 2006 she submitted a request for light duty because she was pregnant. Her manager asked for a doctor’s note, and her doctor gave her one stating that she could not lift more than 20lbs. UPS declared her unfit to perform her job, since the terms of her employment stipulated that she needed to be able to lift up to 70lbs at all times, though her daily duties never required it. They laid her off and discontinued her insurance. Meanwhile accommodations were made for her male colleagues when they sustained injuries off the job – like, while playing sports.
The Supreme Court heard her arguments in December. They expect to give a ruling early this year. The technical question at the heart of the case is quite straightforward: do pregnant employees deserve to be accommodated in the same ways in which people that are injured off the job are accommodated?
People assume that, because the United States has had a Pregnancy Discrimination Act to for 35 years, discrimination against pregnant women is a thing of the past. It isn’t. The pregnancy discrimination act was put in place to protect women from getting terminated for being pregnant and also to protect their wages, but to date it hasn’t spoken to issues of light-duty accommodation or maternity leave. In fact, pregnancy discrimination complaints are on the rise, particularly among women in lower-wage jobs and among women of color like Angie and Sheila. From 1992 to 2011, the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) reported that pregnancy discrimination complaints increased by 71%. Employers still often refuse to make reasonable accommodations – such as allowing pregnant women to carry a water bottle, take bathroom breaks or sit while providing customer service – that would enable them to keep working. As a result, many women are forced out of their jobs even though they are willing and able to work through their pregnancies.
And according to the most recent data, 62% of women in the United States who gave birth in a one-year period also worked during that time. In fact, in every single state in 2012, the majority of women who gave birth in a one-year period were in the labor force. Numerous studies have shown linkages between preterm birth, low birth weight and miscarriage for women who face difficult working conditions including: shift work and night work; physically demanding working postures for at least three hours per day; work that results in whole-body vibrations; psychosocial stress at work; physically demanding work and prolonged standing; and high cumulative work fatigue.
The persistence of pregnancy discrimination in the workplace puts the financial stability and health of these women, their babies and their entire families at risk.
Sheila told me that, when she got home that day after the supervisor yelled at her to hurry up, she had cramps. She sat quietly breathing little soothing sounds to herself, clenching and pushing and breathing. She hid in the bathroom until her husband came home and then he rushed her to their car and to the hospital, where she had a miscarriage. She told me that she endured three levels of pain that day: the pain of the miscarriage; the pain of not fighting back at work; and the pain of all the blame she gave herself. And then shortly thereafter, she had to go back to work.