Attorney General Bonta Joins Multistate Coalition to Defend Workplace Protections for Pregnant Employees

OAKLAND – California Attorney General Rob Bonta today joined a coalition of 24 attorneys general in an amicus brief defending the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)’s rule to implement the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) of 2022. The PWFA is a piece of landmark federal legislation that requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations for pregnant and postpartum employees including accommodations for abortion care. Currently, the rule is being challenged by a coalition of 17 states, led by Tennessee, seeking to stop the EEOC’s rule from taking effect on June 18, 2024. 

 “For employees nationwide, the EEOC’s Pregnant Workers Fairness Act rule provides much needed protections to ensure that no employee will have to choose between their paycheck and their health,” said Attorney General Bonta. “Yet, we are seeing meritless attacks to this rule—a rule that recognizes the full scope of employees’ health needs including abortion care. This is simply unacceptable, and I will continue to fight for comprehensive and equitable accommodations that every employee deserves.”

The PWFA, which passed with bipartisan support in Congress, requires employers to offer accommodations to employees for pregnancy-related medical conditions during the entire period from pregnancy to postpartum recovery. Such pregnancy-related conditions include fertility treatments and pregnancy loss, and accommodations include time off to recover from childbirth and time off to access abortion care. In August 2023, EEOC, the agency tasked with enforcing the Act, proposed a rule implementing the PWFA that, among many other things, required employers to provide reasonable accommodations for workers whose pregnancies are terminated by abortion – most commonly in the form of time off to attend a medical appointment or recovery. Attorney General Bonta, alongside 22 attorneys general nationwide, supported the proposed rule by submitting a comment letter.

 In today’s amicus brief, the attorneys general argue that the PWFA provides critical and overdue protections for employees, particularly low-wage employees and employees of color who are more likely to suffer negative health outcomes during pregnancy as a result of their jobs. The multistate coalition also argues that the EEOC was correct to include termination of pregnancy – including via miscarriage, stillbirth, or abortion – in the law’s protections for “pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions.” Decades of case law interpreting an identical term in the Pregnancy Discrimination Act support the EEOC’s interpretation.

In filing today’s amicus brief, Attorney General Bonta joins the attorneys general of New York, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia. 

A copy of the brief can be found here.