Pregnant Workers Fairness Act

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. FULCHER. Mr. Speaker, there is no question that pregnant workers should be treated fairly and be provided with reasonable accommodations in the workforce. We are all in favor of commonsense guidelines to ensure this.

Serving as a subcommittee ranking member in the Education and Labor Committee, I had the opportunity to dive deeply into this bill and participate in the full committee markup.

While much of this law is redundant to the two laws that currently protect pregnant workers, I agree with many of the provisions in the bill, and it was substantially improved from the version introduced in 2019.

During our markup, I asked for an amendment to clarify one specific provision before lending my support. My provision singles out religious organizations by removing the exemption found in nearly every civil rights bill, including the Civil Rights Act.

Because each religion has its own unique customs, requirements, and traditions, it is not reasonable to mandate employment decisions that conflict with people's faith.

By not including this longstanding Civil Rights Act provision, H.R. 1065 is likely to create legal risk for religious organizations. Pregnancy-discrimination or pregnancy-accommodation laws in at least 16 States and the District of Columbia also include a provision similar to the Civil Rights Act religious organizations protection.

By adding a simple reference in H.R. 1065 to the Civil Rights Act, we can harmonize the bill with current law and ensure that religious organizations receive the same protections as outlined in the Civil Rights Act. This is the only reasonable thing to do.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source