WeWork Accused of Pregnancy Discrimination
By Audrey Roofeh
Pregnancy and gender discrimination isn’t a new story by a long shot, but this week’s news about rampant gender and pregnancy discrimination allegations at WeWork has struck a chord. According to Medina Bardhi, former WeWork chief of staff to former CEO Adam Neumann, WeWork engaged in pregnancy discrimination starting back when she first interviewed for the job in 2013. Neumann asked her at the time if “she was going to get married and become pregnant.” Bardhi says this continued over the years, from WeWork’s Chief Legal Officer, Jennifer Berrent referring to Bardhi’s pregnancy as a “problem” that had “to be fixed,” to Neumann referring to Bardhi’s 2016 maternity leave as “vacation,” sidelining her position, and eventually being fired six months after giving birth to second child and a few weeks after raising concerns about discrimination in connection with her pregnancy and maternity leave. It’s not just WeWork accused of pregnancy discrimination, it’s a problem all over.
What is pregnancy discrimination?
Under federal law, pregnancy discrimination involves treating a woman (whether an applicant or employee) unfavorably because of pregnancy, childbirth, or a medical condition related to pregnancy or child birth. If a woman is temporarily unable to perform her job due to a medical condition related to pregnancy or childbirth, the employer or other covered entity must treat her in the same way as it treats any other temporarily disabled employee.
Long-term impact of pregnancy discrimination
Whenever there is a disruption to one’s career -- period of unemployment, stalling rather than advancing -- it hurts one’s earning power. We also see that women of color experience discriminatory attitudes when seeking accommodations during pregnancy that can affect their livelihoods or health. Pregnancy discrimination also leads to loss of professional opportunities with approximately one in six employers believing that pregnant women and mothers returning from maternity leave are less interested in career progression and promotion than other employees.
What actions should your business take?
Get in compliance - know the rules and follow them in your jurisdiction. Everything from avoiding pregnancy discrimination to complying with leave policies in your city/state. Organizations such as Workplace Fairness and SHRM can provide great information on rights and resources by state.
Train your staff on the relevant laws and internal policies and make sure they know how to respond to requests for accommodation.
Include pregnancy discrimination in your workplace culture trainings. It’s not uncommon for us to hear about workers who were told that their pregnancies were inconvenient, ill-timed, unfortunate, or that it was used it as an opportunity to make inappropriate comments on their changing bodies and more.
Be ready to support your employees before, during and after pregnancy. Some individuals will experience difficulty getting pregnant, or lose a pregnancy. Be aware of the needs of employees may have during these experiences.
Support your pregnant/parent employees. When businesses support pregnant employees, it benefits the workers and the businesses. Talk with your employees about leave policies and how your workplace supports pregnant workers and parents, and then follow the policies.
Don’t initiate conversations about your employees’ family planning decisions. Planning to have children? Never want children? Don’t start the conversation about when and how your employees want to start families. Employees are most likely to come to you when they need an accommodation or will need to take time off.
