When a woman learns that she is pregnant, it can be one of the most joyous occasions in life. Unfortunately, there are some employers who believe pregnant workers are likely to harm their businesses, so they will try to rid their company of the employees by treating them poorly, denying them opportunities for advancement or even finding excuses to fire them.
In a recent case, a medical documentation company rescinded an employment offer to a woman after the firm found out she was pregnant. According to a news report, the company settled the woman’s pregnancy discrimination lawsuit for $80,000.
The 28-year-old had received a job offer from the company and had successfully gone through the firm’s screening process when she received a call from the CEO, who told her that she should have informed the business that she was pregnant. The CEO said if the applicant had disclosed her pregnancy, she would not have received a job offer.
The settlement of the pregnancy discrimination suit requires medical documentation firm Scribe-X to “provide anti-discrimination training to employees and upper management,” a news report in a publication for human resources professionals stated.
HR Dive also noted that “pregnancy bias allegations aren’t usually quite as blatant as this one” but that similar lawsuits are often “triggered by similarly ill-advised comments.”
In some cases, employers attempt to deny promotions or raises to pregnant workers and sometimes discrimination takes the form of denying a job to a qualified applicant. There are also instances of employers refusing to provide reasonable accommodations to pregnant employees, as required by the Pregnancy Discrimination Act.
If you have been subjected to workplace discrimination based on your pregnancy, contact the Milwaukee employment law offices of Alan C. Olson and Associates.