SB 401

Current law prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of sex, including

discrimination against any woman on the basis of pregnancy or a related medical

condition. Current law also prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of

disability, including refusing to reasonably accommodate an employee's disability,

but the Labor and Industry Review Commission (LIRC) has held that pregnancy and

pregnancy-related medical conditions are covered under the sex discrimination, and

not the disability discrimination, provisions of the Fair Employment Law.

Goodrich

v. Duro Paper Bag Mfg. Co, Inc.

(LIRC 02/14/92).

This bill provides that employment discrimination on the basis of sex includes

all of the following:

1. Refusing to reasonably accommodate any condition, including a medical

condition of an employee that is related to pregnancy or childbirth, or to reasonably

accommodate an employee's inability to adequately undertake the job-related

responsibilities of a particular job because of pregnancy, childbirth, or a related

condition that is known to the employer, including the need to express breast milk

for a nursing child (lactation), unless the employer can demonstrate that the

accommodation would pose a hardship on the employer's program, enterprise, or

business.

2. Requiring an employee to take family, medical, or any other type of leave as

a reasonable accommodation of an employee's inability to adequately undertake the

job-related responsibilities of a particular job because of pregnancy, childbirth, or a

related condition that is known to the employer, including lactation, unless the

employer can demonstrate that permitting the employee to remain at work would

pose a hardship on the employer's program, enterprise, or business.

Specifically, the bill requires an employer to explore with an employee who

requests a reasonable accommodation because of pregnancy, childbirth, or a related

condition that is known to the employer, including lactation (reasonable

accommodation), all possible means of providing the reasonable accommodation,

including changing the employee's job responsibilities, changing the employee's

work hours, relocating the employee's work area, providing mechanical or electronic

aids to the employee, transferring the employee to a less strenuous or less hazardous

job, or, subject to the prohibition against requiring an employee to take leave,

providing family, medical, or any other type of leave to the employee.

Further, the bill requires an employer, on the request of an employee for a

transfer to a less strenuous or less hazardous job as a reasonable accommodation, to

transfer the employee for a period up to the duration of the employee's inability to

adequately undertake the job-related responsibilities of a particular job if: 1) the

employer has a policy or practice, or is subject to a collective bargaining agreement,