Connecticut Requires Reasonable Accommodation for Pregnant Employees

On October 1, 2017 an “Act Concerning Pregnant Women in the Workplace” went into effect in Connecticut.  It has been illegal to discriminate against employees on the basis of pregnancy under both federal and Connecticut law.  However, generally under federal and to a lesser degree under Connecticut law, an employer was not required to make an accommodation for a pregnant employee.  As one court described the law: “employers can treat pregnant women as badly as they treat similarly affected but non-pregnant employees.”

That is no longer the law in Connecticut.  Now Connecticut employers are obligated “to make a reasonable accommodation for an employee or a person seeking employment due to pregnancy, unless the employer can demonstrate that such accommodation would impose an undue hardship on such employer.”  Pregnancy includes “childbirth or a related condition, including but not limited to lactation.”

A reasonable accommodation includes “being permitted to sit while working, more frequent or longer breaks, periodic rest, assistance with manual labor, job restructuring, light duty assignments, modified work schedules, temporary transfers to less strenuous or hazardous work, time off to recover from childbirth or break time and appropriate facilities for expressing breast milk.”

A Connecticut employer will be required to make these accommodations unless making them would require “significant difficulty or expense.”

The requirement to provide a reasonable accommodation to pregnant employees extends to employers with three or more employees.

In addition, employers are required to notify employees of the new law (i) at the time of hire; (ii) within ten days of learning that an employee is pregnant; and (iii) for all present employees before December 31. This requirement to notify employees may be met with by displaying a poster “in a conspicuous place, accessible to employees at the employer’s place of business” in English and Spanish.

The Connecticut Department of Labor has prepared a poster and employers can obtain the poster by visiting the Department’s web site.

If you have any questions about this or any other Connecticut employment issue, please contact Bernard E. Jacques (@email).