Yesterday, Governor Christie signed a law that prohibits pregnancy discrimination in New Jersey. The Act, which is an amendment to the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination (“LAD”), adds pregnancy to the list of legally protected categories. Importantly, it defines “pregnancy” broadly to include not only pregnancy itself but also childbirth, medical conditions related to pregnancy or childbirth, and recovery from childbirth.
In the past, many court opinions have found pregnancy discrimination to be a form of unlawful gender discrimination. However, not every court has agreed, leaving some uncertainty in the law. This new law removes any doubt that it is unlawful for an employer to treat a woman worse because of her pregnancy or childbirth, and makes it clear that employers cannot treat pregnant women less favorably than their similarly situated coworkers.
This amendment to the LAD also requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations to pregnant employees based on the advice of their physician, irrespective of whether the employee is disabled. It lists examples of potential accommodations as including “bathroom breaks, breaks for increased water intake, periodic rest, assistance with manual labor, job restructuring or modified work schedules, and temporary transfers to less strenuous or hazardous work.” It also makes it clear that companies must offer their pregnant employees at least as much paid and unpaid time off as it provides to comparable employees who are not pregnant.
However, the law makes it clear that employers do not have to provide an accommodation if it can show it would impose an undue hardship on its business. It lists factors to determine whether a particular accommodation would impose an undue hardship as including (1) the overall size of the employer’s business including the number of employees, the number and type of facilities, and the size of budget; (2) the nature of the employer’s operations, including the composition and structure of its workforce; (3) the nature and cost of the accommodation; and (4) the extent to which the company would need to waive an essential job requirement to provide the accommodation. This final consideration seems to imply that, at least under certain circumstances an employer might be required to waive an essential job requirement to accommodate a pregnant employee. If so, this would be significant since employers are not required to waive essential job functions, even temporarily, when providing reasonable accommodations for an employee’s disability or religious belief.
Since the LAD already included a broad anti-retaliation provision, it now prohibits employers from retaliating against employees who complain about pregnancy discrimination in the workplace. In addition, it includes a new provision forbidding employers for penalizing an employee for requesting or using an accommodation for a pregnancy-related condition.
The amendment also includes a provision that makes it unlawful for individuals and companies to refuse to enter into or renew contracts or otherwise do business with someone because she is pregnant. As a result, in addition to protecting employees it also protects independent contractors.
The new law and all of its requirements went into effect on January 16, 2014. You can read the full text online.