Reasonable accommodation of any condition of an employee that is related to pregnancy or childbirth and of an employee's inability to adequately undertake the job-related responsibilities of a particular job because of pregnancy, childbirth, or a related condition

(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, authorizing or requiring the transfer of an employee with a temporary disability to a less strenuous or less hazardous job for the duration of the disability; or 2) the employer can provide the transfer without having to create additional employment that the employer would not have created otherwise, discharge any employee, transfer any other employee with more seniority than the employee requesting the transfer, or promote to a particular job any employee who is not qualified to perform the job.

Finally, the bill requires an employer, on the request of an employee for a reasonable accommodation due to the need to express breast milk for a nursing child, to explore with the employee all of the following possible means of providing that reasonable accommodation: 1) providing the employee with a reasonable break time to express breast milk; 2) providing a private place, other than a bathroom, that is shielded from view and free from intrusion by coworkers and the public where the employee may express breast milk; and 3) providing the employee with access to an electrical outlet, running water, and a refrigerator for the storage of breast milk.