Human Resources Perspective
Policy/Procedure: Policies and procedures need to be up-to-date and meet current guidelines.
Implementation: Educate supervisory and human resource staff regarding accommodations for pregnant employees. All management needs to be aware of how light duty applies.
Audit: Facility and senior management should review pregnancy accommodation requests and needs to ensure appropriate staffing levels for resident care. They should periodically assess the policies/procedures and implementation with internal and external audits to ensure they are comprehensive, complete, and current.
Buffalo, N.Y. — A family of nursing and healthcare facilities in upstate New York will pay $465,000 and furnish other relief to settle a pregnancy and disability discrimination lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the federal agency announced. According to the EEOC’s suit, the company failed to accommodate disabled workers, denied leave as a reasonable accommodation to individuals with disabilities, refused to allow disabled employees to return to work unless they could do so without medical restrictions, and subjected employees to impermissible disability-related inquiries and medical examinations. The EEOC also charged that the company fired employees on the basis of pregnancy, and failed to accommodate pregnancy-related medical restrictions.
