Pregnancy Discrimination Schreiber and Young’s (2015) “Illinois Releases Pregnancy Accommodation Proposed Rules” and Smith and Tischler’s (2014) “Accommodations under the Pregnancy Discrimination Act” both examine workplace rules regarding pregnancy for workers. Smith and Tischler look at some of the problems associated with the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA) and the challenges that employers runs into when attempting to follow it while also staying compliant with Equal Opportunity laws. Schreiber and Young look at rules proposed by the state of Illinois regarding pregnancy discrimination in the workplace. This paper will compare and contrast the two to find where similarities and differences exist.

Smith and Tischler (2014) point out that the PDA applies to any company the employees 15 or more workers and is an expansion of the Civil Rights Act in that it includes workers who are impacted by pregnancy or childbirth. In short, the PDA affirms that an employer may not discriminate against a worker, a potential hire, a person eligible for a promotion and so on, because she is pregnant or has given birth to a child. However, the employer is not under any obligation to provide an extended period of leave for pregnancy—but the Family Medical Leave Act does address that issue, so it is not necessary for it to be included in the PDA.

Essentially, the PDA states that an employer may not treat an employee who is pregnant any differently than any other employee. The PDA does protect the woman’s right to breastfeed and/or engage in any other activity that is necessitated by pregnancy or childbirth. Thus, Smith and Tischler (2014) give the example of the woman who is breastfeeding at work: the employer...

The workplace must accommodate her need to having a nursing schedule and so on. If it does not, it can be sued for discrimination on the basis of sex.
An employer is required to make sure the pregnant worker is treated in the same manner another worker who has limited abilities would be treated—i.e., lighter workload, leave of absence, and medical benefits (Smith & Tischler, 2014). The employer would have to establish a policy that can be applied to one and all workers regarding leave, if...…PDA described by Smith and Tischler (2014). The difference between the two articles is thus situated in their focus: Smith and Tischler look at laws that have already been passed; Schreiber and Young (2015) look at laws that are not yet on the books but that could be soon in order to further protect the rights of pregnant workers.

The articles are similar in the sense that they both look at and discuss pregnancy discrimination issues in the workplace. However, the article by Smith and Tischler (2014) focuses primarily on what employers need to be concerned about in order to comply with the PDA, while the article by Schreiber Young (2015) focuses on the issues that are going to be of more concern to the pregnant worker and what further accommodations should be guaranteed or protected by law in the state of Illinois. Both articles indicate that when it comes to pregnant workers, they should be treated at the very least in the same way as other disabled workers might be treated; though they should also receive some fringe benefits as well, because of the uniqueness of their condition and burden.

References

Schreiber,…