Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Apr 16, 2024 / 16:22 pm
The Biden administration’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is set to change federal regulations regarding pregnant workers’ fairness to mandate employers make “reasonable accommodations,” including granting leave, for workers to obtain abortions.
The new rule, which is set to take effect 60 days from its publication on April 19, is part of the commission’s efforts to implement the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA), according to a final EEOC rule change announcement.
The final rule expands the scope of accommodations that employers must make for “pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions” to also include workers’ decisions about “having or choosing not to have an abortion.”
The rule applies to all public and private employers with 15 or more workers and is contingent on the accommodations not presenting an “undue hardship on the operation of the business of the covered entity.”