Ep 281: Protecting Pregnancy Rights at Work with Women’s Rights Attorney Jack Tuckner and Attorney & Doula Catherine Crider

Dr. Nicole (00:00): In this episode, we're delving into the critically important issue of pregnancy discrimination in the workplace, and what you can do to protect yourself. This episode is a must listen. If you are pregnant and working, welcome to the All About Pregnancy and birth podcast. If you're having a baby in the hospital, you are giving birth in a system that too often takes away power from women over what happens in their own bodies. I'm Dr. Nicole Calloway Rankins, a practicing board certified OBGYN, who's had the privilege of helping well over a thousand babies into this world. I've been a doctor for over 20 years, and I'm here to help you take back your power, advocate for yourself, and have the beautiful pregnancy and birth that you deserve. This podcast is for educational purposes only, and it's not a substitute for medical advice. Check out the full disclaimer at drnicolerankins.comdisclaimer.

(00:58): Now, let's get to it. Hello there. Welcome to another episode of the podcast. This is episode number 281. Whether it is your first time listening or you've been listening for a while, I'm so glad you're spending some time with me today. In this episode, we have Jack Tuckner and Catherine Crider. Jack Tuckner is a women's rights in the workplace attorney and a founding partner of Tuckner Siper Winestock and Siper, LLPA, new York-based law firm dedicated to workplace gender rights. With over 20 years of experience, Jack advocates for working women at all stages of their reproductive lifecycle from pregnancy through menopause. His practice focuses on combating sexual harassment, pregnancy discrimination, illegal gender pay disparity, sex discrimination, maternity leave matters, unlawful retaliation and wrongful termination. Jack has served as an advocate and commentator on women's discrimination issues in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, NBC Nightly News. Good Morning America, N-P-R-C-N-N, and Moore.

(02:10): And we also have Catherine Kreider. Catherine was admitted to the California bar in 2015. In addition to being a lawyer, Catherine is an active labor and postpartum doula helping families. I love that she has that combination of skill sets when she's not working with families. One-on-one, she teaches childbirth education and postpartum classes for new parents across the United States. Prior to becoming a lawyer, Catherine worked with parents and children in a variety of roles as a licensed elementary and special educator. Just lots of skills that she brings to the table. Catherine also writes for websites on women's health and parenting related topics. Materials she has produced can be found on forbes.com, healthline.com, and education.com. This episode is an absolute must listen for anyone who is navigating pregnancy and working. You are going to learn exactly what is pregnancy based employment discrimination. Some examples of that you'll learn about the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act.

(03:16): You'll learn how to navigate federal and state laws best practices for notifying your employer about pregnancy, and then ways to protect your rights, what legal protections are available to you, and how you best do that. Again, absolute must listen, some excellent information in this episode. I hope that you never need it, but if you do, it will be here for you. Now, something else I know that you will actually need is childbirth education. I have a childbirth education option called the Birth Preparation Course. The birth preparation course is my signature online childbirth education class that will get you calm, confident, and empowered to have a beautiful birth with a focus on hospital birth. You can check out all the details and come join me in the thousands of other women who've taken the birth preparation course to help them have that beautiful birth. Check out all the details at drnicolerankins.com / enroll and use the code Dr. Nicole to get an additional 10% off. Okay, let's get into the conversation with Catherine and Jack. Right. Thank you so much for agreeing to come onto the podcast. I am really excited to have you both on and talk about this really important topic.

Jack Truckner (04:36): Thank you. Thanks for having us, Dr. Nicole.

Dr. Nicole (04:38): Yeah, so why don't you start off each by telling us a bit about yourself and your work.

Jack Truckner (04:42): Well, my name is Jack Truckner and I am the co-founding partner of a law firm in New York City, Truckner Siper, Winestock and Siper that concentrates its practice for the last 26 years on women's rights in the workplace advocacy. And one of the primary forms of that advocacy, which I didn't even expect at the beginning, turned out to be and remains pregnancy discrimination. It's just one of those things that just keeps on

(05:12): Occurring.

(05:13): So although it's gotten so much better over the last 25 years, I'm excited to talk about this here today because of a new law that went into effect that we've been working to get into effect for the last 20 years, the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, and that's a game changer. So we can get into that, but this is principally what we do there, where employment discrimination lawyers that concentrates on gender specific issues in the workplace.

Dr. Nicole (05:41): Gotcha, gotcha. And what about you, Catherine?

Catherine Crider (05:43): So I was actually a teacher who became a doula, and then while I was teaching and doing, I went to law school.

Dr. Nicole (05:51): Not that you had enough to do so, you were just No,

Catherine Crider (05:54): But it's perfect because it's actually what drew so much to the work Jack was doing in the women's sphere because there's actually not a lot of lawyers who focus on women's health all the way now from pregnancy to the work we're doing in menopause. So this is really an exciting area for women's health particularly. We're focusing in the employment side of it, but hopefully it'll spread to other sides as well.

Dr. Nicole (06:17): Gotcha, gotcha. And I guess what, Jack, what led you? I mean, it's 25 years, that's very long. What led you to even focus on pregnancy based discrimination?

Jack Truckner (06:29): Well, it's a great question I get all the time and not, there's sort of the short version of this Dr. Nicole is that I've always been, since I was a kid, I've just always been, I gravitate to the marginalized, the underdog. I've always hated oppression and bullies. And when I first went into, I spent 10 years as a public defender in the Bronx in New York City, and around the time that it started to sort of gets oppressive and it leads to some burnout. And I was thinking, where else can my talents and energies be serve to help folk that need it most? And when I was thinking about marginalized communities, it's actually kind of a great story in and of itself where I was and Hawaii kind of on a mountaintop, it sort of hit me as the largest majority minority population that's underserved is women. And I grew up in a matriarchal household. I watched in the sixties as my mother couldn't get a credit card without that, women couldn't get a credit card

Catherine Crider (07:28): Or

Jack Truckner (07:28): A bank loan or a mortgage until 1974 when the credit card opportunity act passed. My father had given my mother a hard time and it just struck me even then as I just can't believe it in my life, my mother, my aunts, these were the people with the emotional intelligence, the left right brain balance. These were the women who I looked up to and was taught to revere. And then we live in this world where women, men wouldn't put up with it on equal pay. Pregnancy discrimination, sexual harassment, failure to promote. It goes on and on. The injustices, the women's health, this women, the studies, cardiology, we don't include women. We talk about just men and the medications have a different effect. It's nuts. So I sort of came by it naturally back then, and people will say, now, what's an old white guy doing representing women? I go, well, I was a younger, old, cisgender white man, then nobody was, no one was in this space. No one. It's just somebody has to stand up

Catherine Crider (08:30): And

Jack Truckner (08:30): Fight for people who are somehow dispossessed or looking to get equity. And women still don't have equity compared with men. Catherine and I are working now, I'll just say on menopause issues because finally pregnancy has come into its own in terms of this law that we'll talk about. But menopause, if men went through andropause the same way that women suffer the symptoms of perimenopause and menopause, we would have andropause spas in the workplace, andropause

Catherine Crider (09:00): Leaves,

Jack Truckner (09:01): And right now it's like zippo in the us. And by the way, with pregnancy, how's this for an injustice? We're the only nation in the world, essentially in the industrialized world, but basically in the world, there's four other countries you may not have even heard of. All these other nations have paid maternity leaves except dust, right? So we just have to keep fighting for equality,

Dr. Nicole (09:27): Keep Well, I really admire your passion for it and appreciate the fact that this isn't just a women's issue, it's a human issue, and we should all be involved. Tell us what exactly is pregnancy based employment discrimination?

Jack Truckner (09:44): Well, want me to take this, Catherine, or do you want to answer that?

Catherine Crider (09:47): Go for it, Jack.

Jack Truckner (09:47): Well, pregnancy based employment discrimination is when you're treated differently, typically worse in the workplace as a result of being pregnant. Pretty simple. If the terms, conditions, benefits, privileges, pay of your employment is different than non-pregnant employees or it's happening to you because, or as a result of your gestational status or your maternity leave, or you need to express milk postpartum in the workplace, that's all pregnancy

Dr. Nicole (10:15): Discrimination. Gotcha, gotcha. And who wants to give two or three examples, kind of what that might specifically look like?

Jack Truckner (10:22): So an easy example for that that we see frequently in the workplaces is people not getting their jobs back after their postpartum leaves. Unfortunately, that's a reality where they'll find someone else to fill your position or they'll reallocate the tasks while you're gone, and then they'll try and tell you that you've been gone too long. Or even simple things like we frequently see cases where someone's not invited on a work retreat or something because now they have kids. And so the company might try and say that, oh, it would be a hardship for you to come on this retreat. But the truth is, is that the individual should be at least given the option to come on that retreat and shouldn't just be dictated that they won't. I mean, it can be as obvious as something like not being given the time or the breaks to lactate, as Jack mentioned. That does happen in some places where women are entitled to, if you are a lactating woman, you can take the time to do that during your workday and you are entitled to those breaks. So it can look any number of ways the disparities can range. Gotcha, gotcha.

(11:30): The purest examples of this, which existed for a long time, even before this law because the Pregnancy Discrimination Act was passed in 1978 and all that that ended up doing was saying, if you're not hired, if you go for an interview and the interviewer says, oh, you're pregnant, why would we hire you now? And somehow you were able to confirm that or get it on a recording or put it in writing, that's illegal. And if they say, if you tell your employer you're pregnant, they go, oh, congratulations, you're fired. Obviously that's pregnancy discrimination. But in between all of that, the way that it really played out was being denied flexibility, reasonable accommodations throughout your nine month pregnancy for pregnancy related issues. It used to be that you required a pregnancy related medical condition like those that I'm sure you deal with, gestational hypertension and diabetes and all the other high risk kind of pregnancy issues. Now, the natural limitations of pregnancy. so-called the fact that you're with child, the fact that you'll need to use the restroom more often, the fact that you need to go see your OB GYN for prenatal appointments. Those are the things that if they deny that, that's pregnancy discrimination. If you're passed over for promotion, if they say stupid stuff, the sort of benign paternalism of, oh, well, we don't want you to fly, we're worried about you. No,

Catherine Crider (12:59): That's

Jack Truckner (12:59): Pregnancy discrimination simply or being forced to resign or quit because of your pregnancy or because, and here's a big one. When companies will say, and I encounter this all the time, much more so a few years ago now they're starting to finally wake up and smell the coffee companies. But I'll just tell you two weeks ago, Popeye's, the National Chicken and whatever they are chain,

Catherine Crider (13:28): They

Jack Truckner (13:28): Were held accountable two weeks ago. They paid an undisclosed bunch of money

(13:33): To an employee in Florida who they fired for being pregnant. And the reason they told the EEOC that held them to account and made them settle was that she would've needed accommodations. And we didn't think, we didn't want to provide them. Well, except that's what the law says. So it happens all the time that women who are pregnant, your employers don't really like it. It's your pregnancies not a profit center. It's profits over people in American companies. So the notion that we're going to have to be flexible, we can't fire you, and what we're really concerned about is a few months from now we're going to have to do without you for three

Catherine Crider (14:15): Months

Jack Truckner (14:17): And then give you your job back. And we don't think that that's, it's like get pregnant on your own time, sister.

(14:25): That's kind of the corporate ethos about this. But what I was about to say is companies will often say, when is your baby born? I have this as a recurring theme. And our prospective client or client or any woman that said, but this was a real case, said to the HR person, well, June, so-and-so whatever. And the HR person then says, yeah, but the problem is is that when your water breaks from, given what you've told us when your due date is, you won't have worked here for a full year. And when people said, well, what does that mean? Well, the Family and Medical Leave Act requires that you work for a full year and that you work for a company with at least 55 0 employees. That's way more Than's needed for discrimination claims, which is 15 under federal law. And then they would just kind of gaslight women into quitting and just they would say, listen, it's not our fault. Write to your congress person.

Catherine Crider (15:15): We

Jack Truckner (15:15): Didn't make the law look it up, the FMLA, except they were telling the truth while lying, or they were just completely ignorant. This could happen. What they're saying is true, the FMLA, which provides 12 weeks of unpaid leave for the birth or adoption of your baby or a sick family member or your own serious illness, and that's what I was referring to, is unpaid compared to every other civilized country.

Catherine Crider (15:39): But

Jack Truckner (15:40): That's not the only law a game in town. So for all the women who work for smaller employers who worked a year when their babies are born, they can't still deny your maternity leave because first of all, they can't deny it. Now under the Pregnant Workers' Fairness Act that just went into effect June 27th, 2023, game Changer and also contemporaneously with that law, the Pump Act pump standing for providing urgent maternal protections for nursing mothers, the Pump Act now gives 9 million more women, virtually everyone, the right to express milk postpartum for up to a year in the workplace. And this was like this one two punch finely that allows most women to say, you know what? I now can have my cake and eat it too, which should be the way it is in a family values culture that we profess to be.

Catherine Crider (16:36): I

Jack Truckner (16:37): Can keep my gainful employment and have a baby and get back to work after I have a baby. No worse for where.

Dr. Nicole (16:44): Gotcha.

Jack Truckner (16:45): So I may have over answered the question.

Dr. Nicole (16:48): No, no, no, no. I like it. This is all really important information. Now, you mentioned the federal laws. Let's talk about those. So you talked about the Pump Act and even if you want to expand on that a little bit, what that is, and then what is the pregnancy? I already am going to mess it up, so I'm going to let you guys say it. Thank you.

Jack Truckner (17:06): The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which we've been trying to get past. When I say we, all of us stakeholders that have been working on this, just like now we're working on a Menopause Workers Fairness Act with Congress. We've been working on this for years. Conservatives Republicans voted against it time and time again, we don't need that. They said finally, it finally passed last year. This law is like the Americans with Disabilities Act for pregnant women. Simplest way to say it,

Catherine Crider (17:35): It

Jack Truckner (17:35): Requires reasonable accommodations of flexibility and makes pregnancy itself. Pregnancy is not a disability itself, but it makes pregnancy a protected status. So when you say your company, I'm pregnant, and one important thing which we can get to, but I want to, before I forget it, when you notify your company that you're pregnant, best practice, you do it in writing. Because what happens is if you just say it at the water cooler or if you wait till you're showing and people know you're pregnant and your company is like, dang, we don't really Jane's pregnant, and why don't we manage her out the door now? And if they put you on a performance improvement plan or write you up and you haven't told them you're pregnant, particularly when you're not yet showing or you're working remotely, they get to say, we didn't even know you were pregnant. So this is a performance issue. Now, if you send an email, and this is the way to do it, you simply send a friendly email to HR to benefits. If it's a smaller company to your boss, it doesn't matter, but you want it in writing where you're saying, I just want to share the news that we're pregnant and we're so happy, and I'm just following up trying to find out what the company's maternity leave policies are. That email is your paper trail. Very important.

Dr. Nicole (18:53): Gotcha, gotcha.

Jack Truckner (18:54): Right, because if you deal with an adverse employment action, like more hostility, a demotion failure to promote or a termination on the heels of that, well, that's illegal. So I could go on and on, but

Dr. Nicole (19:07): Yeah, no, so it provides a level. You have to get accommodations, reasonable accommodations of course, and I'm sure people can argue about that, but reasonable accommodations related to pregnancy, including going to appointments even.

Jack Truckner (19:23): And if you are working for a strict employer where it's like, Hey, I need permission, or I have to get up and go to the bathroom, and they say, no, hold it. Wait to get coverage, you need coverage right before you can go, no, not when you're pregnant. When your physician tells you you need to stay hydrated and you need to eat crackers at your desk to stave off morning sickness, for example, they can't tell you there's no eating at your desk. So if you need to stand or if you need to sit because you're a hostess or whatever, and you need to sit occasionally during the day, they have to give you time to sit. Anything that makes sense if you're driving too much, even remote work, if you're commuting an hour and a half each way and you're in your second or third trimester and it's painful or difficult and you have to pee,

Catherine Crider (20:11): Gotcha, gotcha.

Jack Truckner (20:12): They would want to let you would ask for, and they're going to likely allow you remote work. And why? Because the only thing an employer can say to oppose it is, well, that's a bridge too far young lady. That means that that would be an undue hardship on our business. And if it's for three months or six months, it's not an undue hardship likely. I mean, unless you work for a tiny organization that can actually pull that off. But if you work for a company with at least 15, now this one five, not 50, like I mentioned with the FMLA 15 employees, you're covered by the Pregnant Workers' Fairness Act, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, which also protects women from discrimination based on pregnancy and sex. Speaking of which, pregnancy discrimination is always sex discrimination and pregnancy discrimination is almost always disability discrimination because at least you're either perceived as being disabled during your gestational cycle, which is just as illegal as actual disability discrimination or postpartum. Dr. Nicole, it is now established. Even insurance carriers agree with this, at least six weeks post vaginal delivery, eight weeks post you're disabled. So they have to give you short-term disability to recover. Might not be paid,

Catherine Crider (21:42): But

Jack Truckner (21:42): You have to be able to take maternity leave.

Catherine Crider (21:46): Something else to know about the laws is that those are the national laws, but depending on where you live in the country, you also want to consider state and more local laws because you might actually have greater protection under those. Thank you. Jack was mentioning numbers like 50 and 15, but there are state and local ordinances that cover all companies in the area or only require five employees or something like that. So you do, even if you work for a very small company, you might want to look into your state and local ordinances because you may still have protections there too.

Dr. Nicole (22:23): Yeah. And Catherine, what is a good place, or how do you figure out what your state do you Google? What do you say? I'm in Virginia, what I say like Virginia pregnancy law and see what comes up. So how can you figure that out?

Catherine Crider (22:36): That's a good, so there's different ways. So you can go to Google and there's all those ai, different devices you can ask your AI devices. Obviously whatever you get back on those, you do want to dig a little further because discrepancies can happen with technology.

(22:54): You can also, in your local area, there's going to be employment lawyers. There's going to be things like that. So if you sense that there is the possibility of discrimination, I'm pretty sure Jack would agree with me on this. At a certain point, you do want to loop in a lawyer. Many lawyers would do basic consultations for very cheap or even free. There's also different legal groups within your local area that you can research. But a good place to start is actually honestly going to HR at your company, seeing what they believe they're required to do. Because many times they'll give you some information and then if that works for you, fine. But if it's not, then you might want to start digging a little deeper too. HR can be helpful for you in some situations as well. Jack, I know you have some resources you like to give out specifically.

Jack Truckner (23:45): I mean, well, I believe there's an organization called workplace fairness.org, which lists every state's laws with respect to discrimination. But also, again, this is the simplest Google search because and every state, almost every state has a state agency except for maybe Alabama. There's a couple that don't even have state laws for discrimination, but almost every state has a specific administrative agency that handles discrimination claims. So if you just Google pregnancy discrimination in my state, you'll find out. But what is important, what Catherine said, which was so important, is that in New York and Connecticut where I'm a lawyer and captain's a lawyer in California, the bluer state, so-called tend to have more progressive laws. New York City has a pregnant Workers' Fairness Act of its own for 10 years, which is just wildly progressive. And New York City's human rights law in and of itself is extremely employee oriented and centric.

(24:43): And New York only requires New York City four employees to bring a claim and New York state only one. So wherever you work in New York state, if you're the only employee, you're entitled to protection from pregnancy discrimination. So it's very important that to know that you're not out of the box if you work for an employer with let's say eight employees, except in some states have 15 employee thresholds too. It is sad when we hear from an employee who says from somewhere other than New York or Connecticut where they say, I'm being discriminated against, and I work for an employer with eight employees, for example, and their own state law and federal law doesn't protect them. It's like there's really nowhere to go. But most of us work for an employers with at least 15 or work in places where there's a state or city statute, Massachusetts, New York, California, there's a bunch of states that do way better than federal

Dr. Nicole (25:38): Law. Do you see that most people who are impacted by this, do they tend to be in lower wage professions or is it across the gamut in terms of who's affected?

Jack Truckner (25:50): It's across the gamut. Totally. I've represented, I'm representing someone now who's earning 600 k plus a year. I mean, it's a pregnancy case, it doesn't matter. It's one of those when companies are sort of equal opportunity discriminators

Catherine Crider (26:04): When

Jack Truckner (26:04): It comes to pregnancy because the same issues, it's probably easier to mess with someone on a lower level, and sometimes there's a lack of resources involved, but no, it's everyone.

Dr. Nicole (26:17): Okay. Okay. All right. Now, you said best practices for notifying an employer that you're pregnant. Definitely do it in writing. And do you just say like, I'm pregnant. Do you say anything about due date? Do you say, should you let them know as soon as you know? What about the timing of that?

Catherine Crider (26:36): Oh, one thing that's interesting about timing is that some people might be tempted to wait to the three month mark, right? Because as we know medically, we're less likely to have a miscarriage after that point. The problem is in those first three months is when many women experience a lot of complications with morning sickness or are unable to go to work for some reason because they're so ill from the initial stages of a pregnancy. So if you are experiencing anything like that, you want to get it documented sooner rather than later,

(27:12): Because

(27:13): If you were to wait to the three month mark, they might already be starting their plans to manage you out or be otherwise concerned about your health, and that could lead to job performance issues in and of itself, and you wouldn't be protected. So there is a fine line about how early you want to notify and what feels right for you. Obviously, Jack, and I can't tell you the day you find out you're pregnant, go tell your boss. But I would strongly urge listeners, don't wait too long if you're showing those strong pregnancy symptoms and it's impacting your life because they can start managing you out before you would say anything to them.

Jack Truckner (27:57): Right? If you have severe morning sickness in the first trimester,

Catherine Crider (28:01): You

Jack Truckner (28:01): Might need to notify your employer before you notify even your parents, because you may not want to announce it to the whole world if there's any risk that you might not maintain the pregnancy. But if you want to maintain your economic lifeline as Catherine just eloquently put it, you really want to notify them sooner than later in writing so that they can't get the jump on you and mess with you. I can't tell you how. I mean, it's still the number one cause of action out of our office with all of the unequal pay, gender pay, disparity, failure to promote sexual harassment, glass ceiling, glass, cliff, all the issues that women deal with as women in the workplace. Pregnancy discrimination is the number one challenge for

Dr. Nicole (28:43): Women. Okay. And I assume you can include some language, keep it confidential. Is that okay? Only those who need to know that kind of thing. Is that safe

Jack Truckner (28:54): To

Dr. Nicole (28:54): Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.

Jack Truckner (28:55): Right. It's your HIPAA protected medical information. Yes.

Dr. Nicole (28:59): Gotcha, gotcha. So what should you do if you find yourself needing accommodations during pregnancy? What's the best way to ask for them?

Catherine Crider (29:08): So it's really a conversation between you and your boss. And I think that's sometimes where people get it wrong on both sides, like the employers and the employees. You want to come in and have a conversation about, this is my medical need. How can we meet it in this business environment so that we we're both sustainable? Because no one wins. If you come into the environment and you're saying, it's my way or the highway, I don't care what happens to your business or I don't care what happens to you as an employee, the goal is to find the middle ground that you can all be satisfied on. So if both sides can come in to a conversation with those attitudes, we do see great success sometimes, and there is no need for a Jack or I to enter the scene

(29:55): Many times. If you can come to your employer and have those productive conversations, it can work out great. And people can have very simple solutions for their problems. Now, the problem comes when there's some kickback, right? And either side starts saying, well, that doesn't meet my needs. So at that point, that's where if you're the employee, you'll really need a paper trail from your doctor being like, no, this is a necessary accommodation for this reason for the employee. And then once you have that paper trail, if the employer is still pressing back on you, that's where someone like a Jack or I can send an email reminding your employer that there are laws on the books that they have to meet you part way with this, they have to provide accommodations. If they're still refusing at that point, then it can escalate further. But the goal would be we start from a productive conversation of everyone trying to help everyone through this process.

Dr. Nicole (30:53): That makes sense.

Jack Truckner (30:54): Dr. Nicole, may I just tell a little case law story,

Dr. Nicole (30:58): Please? Yeah.

Jack Truckner (30:58): So just to explain this better and why now happens to be the best time ever in sort of the history of the United States to be a working woman who's also pregnant, not with, and again, separate and apart from what's going on on the women's right to choose aspect of this, but women have it. If you want to end a pregnancy. Now that may be illegal in this country and women are dying now over that, but if you're voluntarily choosing to have a pregnancy, that's pregnancy. That's also been an uphill battle for many women and still is for some women. Peggy Young was a woman who worked for United Parcel Service for years, was a driver when she was pregnant, she happened to have had a high risk pregnancy. So her obstetrician wrote a note and said, she can't lift more than 10 pounds or something like that, UPS. And she was already a so-called air driver, meaning that her deliveries were tend to be like letters

Catherine Crider (31:52): Lighter,

Jack Truckner (31:52): But occasionally she had a 25 pound package. She could have easily had someone help her with it or they could have given her office work. So here's what happened. UPS back then, and this was just before 2015, UPS used to provide light duty to three classes of employees. Those who lost their licenses through DWI convictions for heaven's sake, those who were injured on the job and those who had other kinds of disabilities. But when it came to pregnant women, they said, no, what are you talking about? It's not a disability, it's voluntary sister, and nobody told you to do it. And the law, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act at that time, and this is what's been the problem for decades, said that they only have to provide accommodations to people when their inability or ability to work is similar to someone else's inability to work. And they were saying, you don't have any comparators because your pregnant women, sorry, she had to leave their employee lose her health insurance. That case when all the way to the Supreme Court before the Supreme Court became today's Supreme Court, that would've ruled against her. And in a six three decision, they ruled for her and said, you know what? We are reinterpreting the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, and now we're saying, here's what it means. Every pregnant woman when she needs, you have to give her special treatment. Now, that's what it is.

(33:20): It's a protected status. You simply have to do it. And on the heels of that, finally Congress passed the law called the Pregnant Workers' Fairness Act, but it took several more years to become law, which now codifies it and says, simply pregnancy, if you need light duty, they have to give you light duty. They can't force you to lift 50 pound boxes if it's not medically advisable. It's all good right now under that law. And what we're finding out, just like the, what was the name, the Popeye's, this was just a couple of weeks ago, and this is a national chain. They didn't even know about it, the law. So we can't assume that our employers care and are up to date, which is why, which is really putting everything in writing that you're pregnant. And then if your boss says something stupid, do you plan on having any more children? That's illegal saying something that they think, oh, it's a compliment, but it's really just benign paternalism. Again, that's illegal. Touching your belly without your permission, that's illegal. So anything that feels like, seriously, you asked me that. You said

Catherine Crider (34:30): That

Jack Truckner (34:31): You're excluding me from a meeting, blah, blah, blah. You say, I shouldn't go out anymore on client meetings in the evenings or play golf because it's not a good look or because you can't drink. Well, that's pregnancy discrimination and sex discrimination. Right.

Dr. Nicole (34:45): Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha.

Jack Truckner (34:47): So women need to know this, right? Yes. So that they don't get managed out the door. And if the marriage can't be saved because of the way they're treating you as a result of pregnancy by documenting everything, you'll be in a much stronger position to command severance. They'll pay you to leave because they're going to want you to sign a general release of claims. I'm just talking about when things do go really south before they fire you, and you have to hire lawyers like us and sue them. You still can hold them accountable because you've documented the pregnancy discrimination. It's that simple.

Dr. Nicole (35:24): Got it. Got it. Got it. So then what should you do? This kind of leads nicely into the next question. What should you do if you feel like your rights have been violated during pregnancy? Number one, you said keep all the documentation, but if you can't come to that agreement, then what should you do from there?

Jack Truckner (35:41): Well, first of all, a lot of time, here's another sort of mistake. Some people think pregnancy discrimination is only about hiring and firing decisions. No, it's about all these things we've been talking about. But people will sometimes say, no, I write everything down. I've kept a diary. Well, that kind of doesn't count. You want to keep this paper trail in dock to your employer. So you really want to send emails where you maintain that thread. You resend an email, they respond, say noted. Most of the time when employees complain to their company's hr, and I've been hearing these mantras for 20 years, companies will say, we're an equal opportunity employer. Thank you so much for complaining. We take complaints like this very seriously in this company. We're going to investigate it now, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. They rarely come back and find for you. But that paper trail of your complaining, they're responding. They're investigating. If anything happens, untoward, if anything, if things go south in any way, that's not only discriminatory, but there's another law aspect of the law. It's retaliatory because their company's not allowed to treat you worse simply because you're standing up for your rights as a pregnant woman in your workplace.

(37:00): So you've got a lot of juice if you know how to exercise it. And again, mostly it's that paper trail. Now, it might behoove you to call a plaintiff side, an employee rights lawyer. You could certainly call us. But the licensure, if we are not, I've represented women in 20 states over the years, because we can do it from afar if it's negotiating them out or filing an EEOC charge. But if you end up in court, it's still best to find an employment lawyer in your state or city. And by the way, the National Employment Lawyers Association, that's based in San Francisco, but every state, most every state has an affiliate organization. You could call them neela, NELA, because they will have a list of employment lawyers in your state or city to sort of recommend or hook you up with.

Dr. Nicole (37:50): Okay, so or if are there any circumstances where it's legal for an employer to fire you during pregnancy?

Catherine Crider (38:03): There are situations while you are protected. You can't go rogue is one situation. I like to describe it. So this is more of a menopause example, but it applies to pregnancy as well. There was an individual who was experiencing menopause symptoms,

(38:21): And so she decided without company permission to change her wardrobe requirement, and she didn't go through the proper steps, she didn't file the paperwork with the company, explain to them all the situation, all that. And so she just kind of went rogue, changed her wardrobe and all that. And ultimately the company did fire her because she wasn't following their policies. And although she pointed back and was like, no, I should have been protected. I was going through the situation, they're like, well, you didn't notify us properly. You didn't go through the right channels, and so as a result, we can fire you. So I think the number one thing people should be aware of is this supposed to be a collaborative process. So the biggest way that you can harm yourself with your company is by not going through the collaborative process and by kind of making unilateral decisions to like, oh, I'm just going to work remote today because I decided to, or I'm going to take extra breaks today because I feel the need to without getting that approved and clarified and taking the steps.

Jack Truckner (39:28): Gotcha.

Catherine Crider (39:29): Jack, I'm sure you could think of other examples.

Jack Truckner (39:31): Well, I have one big one, which is this, just like you could be fired by your company. So most of us, here's just an, I just want to back up a second. Most of us these days are, so-called at will employees. And for those who don't know what it means at will, employment means you don't have a contract of employment and you don't have a contract of employment. A lot of people say they do, they have an offer letter, and it might be 10 pages, but within it, it'll say you're an at will employee. It's not a binding three year contract. Most of us can no longer command that. The only contract that some employees have are union contracts. So they're the beneficiary of that collective contract. When I was young, the 35% of the workforce was unionized us down to like 5% or so.

(40:18): So most of us are at will employees, and what does that mean? We could be fired. Here's what the definition of at will employment is. We could be fired at any time for any reason or ready for absolutely no reason at all, except in Montana, 49 states are at will. Montana says after six months, you have to give somebody a reason, but it's Montana. There's like 900,000 people in the whole state. So 49 states, you could be fired at any time for any reason or no reason, but you can't be fired for illegal reasons. But you could be fired when you're black, when you are Muslim, when you're over 40, when you're disabled, when you're gay, when you're pregnant, you just can't be fired because of any of those

Catherine Crider (41:03): Reasons.

Jack Truckner (41:04): So if your company says, and this is the big one, that's a major problem in these giant companies that have these mass layoffs like Google,

(41:12): Even though they catch up in these mass firings more pregnant women than others, which is because of the algorithms in AI and other, we don't need to get into, but women, pregnant women often draw the short end of the stick. But when there's a mass layoff or when your company says, listen, we're really sorry, we're sorry you're on maternity leave, and we have to tell you this for example, well, when you're pregnant, we have to tell you this, but we're eliminating your position. And if it's true, if they're actually saying, look, you know how poorly we're doing, we're laying off 10 people. You're one of them. We're not going to replace you with a non-pregnant woman. If that's true, that's not discrimination. That's just life in the big city. Right?

Dr. Nicole (41:53): Okay. Gotcha. Gotcha. That makes sense. That makes sense. So then as we wrap up, what would you say is the most frustrating part of the work you do?

Jack Truckner (42:03): Well, the most frustrating part is that it never ends in terms of the injustice. So for somebody who cares about this and you kind of like after 30 something years, I'm like, really? It's the same issues arise over and over, and it's frustrating to keep as it was with the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act as it is now with menopause issues, to keep banging our heads against the wall to try to obtain justice for women, for people of color. By the way, for all marginalized communities, and by the way, black and brown women, everything we've been talking about have it way worse than white women in every one of these areas with microaggressions, with every type of discrimination, even in terms of care you might, right? In terms of results and outcomes medically. So the most frustrating part is that sometimes it feels like we go backwards. I mean, including the way it's kind of feeling now, and the progressive mantra right now of we ain't going back. We're not going back. We're not going back. But we might go back and there are certain factions in our world that want to go back. So that's frustrating because the progress is so slow. It's like, in my lifetime, will menopause now be protected? I was worried about it for my own daughters with pregnancy with equal pay. There's another law called paycheck fairness. Women still earn way less than men

(43:23): Across the board, except the Paycheck Fairness Act has been stuck in committee in Congress since 1997. Guess why? There are certain groups and politicians that oppose it. So that's frustrating. It's like this is not a world that has equity for women yet like men.

Dr. Nicole (43:42): What about you, Catherine? What's frustrating for you?

Catherine Crider (43:45): I think that it's the lack of information people get about their rights, which is why thank you so much for having us on today, because it's so important that we get the opportunity to share this information with people. Because so many people just don't know what pregnancy discrimination actually looks like, what laws are out there to help them. And I think that it's just we can fight so hard to get things through Congress or to help write legislation or to fight it on the judicial side. But as much as those battles happen, if people aren't utilizing it and understanding that it's there, then it's not actually being a benefit to them. And I think that that's something that we feel really strongly about is we want this to be a benefit to people. So thank you for sharing this. And then the additional frustration with that is when people get false information. So I really encourage people to dig deeper. Don't just accept it. If a department tells you, this is what we do at our company, this is what is double check. Is that actually the rule in your city or state? Are there other protections available to you? Because a lack of information and false information are very harmful things for particularly women who are pregnant.

Dr. Nicole (45:00): Yep, I can

Catherine Crider (45:00): See that.

Jack Truckner (45:01): And may I just add, I think it's important,

(45:03): One of all the laws, the Pregnant Workers' Fairness Act, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, amendments Act protects pregnant women because it still meets the, now the definition, that's the 2008 revision to the Americans with Disabilities Act now covers pregnancy related conditions and the FMLA, because if you do work, have worked for a full year for a company with at least 50 employees, the FMLA does provide 12 weeks of protected leave where you have to be given your job back. And if you work in states like New York, we have our own paid family leave. So people who are lucky enough to work in New York State have paid maternity leave.

Dr. Nicole (45:42): Really important. Really important. So then on the flip side, what's the most rewarding part of your work?

Jack Truckner (45:48): Well, the most rewarding part is when we do, which happens frequently when our clients get a certain amount semblance of workplace justice. And we love that. I mean, I love that that's a daily thing. It's not like a Boston legal episode. It's not like it doesn't have to be a dramatic or we're going to trial in five years and you won $10 million. It's just you held your employer to account. We took our little Davy slingshot and pinged Goliath in the forehead. We got them to back off to pay you money. Taught them a lesson. Women can square their shoulders. And I say women, but anyone who's been discriminated against, who feels marginalized, when you work with a lawyer who just will work with you, many lawyers work on a contingent basis in employment law. They don't expect to get paid the obscene hourly rates that lawyers get unless you happen to make a lot of money and you're still working and need help and counsel. But if you're fired, most of us work on a basis contingent basis. People worry like, oh, how could I pay for a lawyer?

Catherine Crider (46:44): You'd

Jack Truckner (46:44): Be surprised if you have the facts. You know why? Because when you win in an employment case, there's civil rights cases. This is a Civil rights act.

Catherine Crider (46:54): Civil

Jack Truckner (46:54): Rights laws. Your company will pay your attorney when you prevail in court. That's why. So most rewarding is basically actually helping, which is why I went into it and Catherine went into this. We actually want to help people is to make a difference and help people like most lawyers say in law school, and then they often forget about it when they get a big money job offer.

Dr. Nicole (47:19): What about you, Catherine? What's the most rewarding part for you?

Catherine Crider (47:22): So for me, I love seeing families go grow and enabling families to grow. And I think that pregnancy discrimination actually prevents families from growing, right? Because people can't afford to have their families. It makes them regret maybe their decision to get pregnant because now their life situation looks different. So for me, what I really love is hearing the stories of the success of their family and going on to have a great family life after whatever they've gone through. Because I think that's something we can all rally behind is we want strong families, we want healthy families, we want people to be happy and have a good future. Definitely. That's what excites me is hearing the success stories down the road of how their families have grown and gotten further along.

Dr. Nicole (48:10): Yeah, definitely. So then, what is your favorite piece of advice that you would give to expectant mother or someone who's pregnant?

Jack Truckner (48:18): Well, my favorite piece of advice is you have rights. Exercise them, get informed a little bit about what we're talking about and know it. I have, I've been explaining on, I have, if you look for me on TikTok, I've been making videos about pregnancy discrimination that explains some of these things. We're also both on LinkedIn, Catherine Crider, Jack Tuckner, or you could reach out to us at our firm. But the best advice though that I have is document, document, document. Put everything in writing around your discrimination. It doesn't have to be contentious. Just document it factually. This is what happened today. I told my boss said this thing, this is what happened. Just make sure you're just not having conversations because they circle the sun with all the other etheric spirits and they're gone.

Catherine Crider (49:02): And

Jack Truckner (49:02): Reality is you need a paper trail. And I would, it's like prepare for the best or expect whatever the expression is. I don't know if I forgot the expression, but expect that most women have a pregnancy, that they have a pregnancy, they're working, they go out on maternity leave, they return. Most are no worse for wear and it's fine, but the numbers are so outrageous. Even the EEOC, that's the number one claim. So it's obviously a thing. It's not in your head. It's not in your head.

Catherine Crider (49:37): So

Jack Truckner (49:37): Instead of waiting and just go, I don't know if you really meant it that way. There's no downside to documenting even if you're not sure. It's just if you're feeling diminished, if the conditions of your employment in any way feel degraded ever since you were pregnant, people are just even looking at you differently. The assignments are different. You should note that, because otherwise, these are the little things that these little cracks that add up and get bigger. The next thing you know you're demoralized and they find a way to get rid of you. And it was all because you were expecting or you're a new mom and even postpartum, right? It's a difficult time to manage that whole first year postpartum being a new mother, your caregiver responsibilities and your work responsibilities. So it's just best to have the company just sit and say, you know what? This is a smart employee who's documented everything and we probably don't want to mess with her.

Dr. Nicole (50:33): Yeah, definitely. Definitely. What about you, Catherine? What's your favorite piece of advice?

Catherine Crider (50:36): So I think it's really important to stress to people that we're not meant to do this alone.

(50:41): And so whether that means bringing in a lawyer, whether that means having doctors and doulas for your birth, whatever it is, and it obviously starts before you're pregnant. But I think that part of the parenthood journey is learning not to do it alone. And that's really true during your pregnancy. So whether you're feeling discriminated against and you need support groups or you need friends to rally raju or whatever it is, I think my biggest piece of advice is don't isolate yourself, because that's where you start questioning everything and you won't get the help you need. And you really talk to people, whether that's your doctors, your midwives, your friends, your family, your lawyer, whoever it might be that you need in your life. But don't isolate yourself. Don't try and do this alone because that's when it gets so much tougher, so much harder for you and it's not necessary.

Dr. Nicole (51:32): Yeah, definitely. Definitely. So you mentioned that you all are on LinkedIn and your names will put those links in the profile. What's your website or other places where people can find you?

Jack Truckner (51:40): Well, our website is Women's rights ny, so it's just women's W-O-M-E-N-S, rights, R-I-G-H-T-S-N-Y, for New york.com. You can reach out to us there. If you send an email to info at women's rights ny.com, I will see it. Our office manager will see it. And that might start an intake process. You could send dms on LinkedIn, on TikTok. You could give us a call at (212) 766-9100 and speak to Katie or Deborah or Mia. But the idea is that if you want, this is all confidential and if you want or need some advice, again, you're probably best if you're in Wisconsin, you can find an employment lawyer in Wisconsin. And it's always helpful to have a lawyer who knows the local rules, who knows the local laws, than it would be to just go to someone who hasn't a clue and can't really go to court in your state. But if you have a question, and you could certainly still reach out to us.

Dr. Nicole (52:44): Yeah. Well, thank you so much. I so appreciate you both being here. I learned a lot I didn't know about this act that was recently passed in 2023. This is really important information that everybody, every family who's having a baby should know. So thank you so much for being here. You're welcome. Thank

Jack Truckner (53:00): You. Hey, Dr. Nicole. I wanted to just tell you that, do you know that, and when I first started doing this, it was OBGYNs who were the main source of our cases because women would go, you would say to them, how you feeling? And they'd go, I feel great, but damn if work isn't hostile and harassing me. And that's when, so

Catherine Crider (53:18): That's

Jack Truckner (53:18): How sometimes you might be the first to hear that someone's dealing with workplace stress based on the pregnancy.

Dr. Nicole (53:24): Yeah, definitely. And will say, sadly, the medical profession isn't that great about accommodations either. So anyway, but thank you so much.

Jack Truckner (53:33): Thank

Dr. Nicole (53:33): You.

Jack Truckner (53:34): You're welcome. Dr. Nicole. Thank you for having us.

Dr. Nicole (53:43): Wasn't it a great conversation? It's obvious that they come to this work from a place of service and really wanting to help people have their protection and fairness that they deserve, and I really appreciate them coming away. Now, after every episode when I have a guest on, I do something called Dr. Nicole's notes, which are my thoughts and takeaways from the conversation. Here are my Dr. Nicole's notes from my conversation with Catherine and Jack. Number one, pregnancy rights are a human issue, not just a women's rights issue. This is something that we all should be a concerned about, whether we have children or not, whether we're a man or a woman, we all should care about pregnancy rights issues. So I can appreciate that Jack has made this a focus of his career. It really is embarrassing how we as a society want to make choices for women, but yet don't support families and don't support pregnant women and people in helping to have the best pregnancy and be in circumstances where they can thrive.

(54:52): So just know that these issues are really human rights issues and we can all get behind them. Okay, next up, they talked about the critical importance of documenting things. When you are wanting to know or wanting to pursue any concerns about your rights, I want to encourage you to document things in another area, and that is in your prenatal care. Okay? And I'm not saying that you need to document what your doctor or what your midwife is doing in order to protect against some potential future lawsuits or anything like that, or sue anybody. What I'm warning you to document are one things that you think of when you're not in the office, when you're in the kitchen and like, oh, I had this question about this or that. Jot that down in a note, a voice note in your phone so that you can have it with you to take to your next appointment.

(55:52): The reality is that prenatal care, these short appointments, they're just not set up for those long conversations. If you're going with the traditional doctors type appointment, midwives probably have more time, but even that may not be a lot. So you want to make the most of your time. So definitely just keep a running note. I use Google. I'm in the Google sphere. Google has keep notes. I'm sure Apple has notes. So you just keep a running list of things, notes you want to about things that pop up in your head or comments after the appointment. Just jot down a few things so that you can go back and remember it. Remember that pregnancy brain is real for sure. For sure, for sure. So document some things during your prenatal care journey so that you can make the most of those visits. And then the last thing I want to say is to echo Catherine's advice of don't do it alone.

(56:52): Get help. Okay, get help. You are not meant to go through your pregnancy and parenting journey alone, whether that's just with you and your partner or just you in general. This is not meant to be something that is done alone. Children and babies should be born and supported in community and in the past, that community often was blood community. So family in that regard these days. Community has involved, it can look a lot of different ways. It can be community, online, even whether that's something like a Facebook group. I have a free Facebook group called The Inner Circle. You can hop in there. So it may look like online community. It may look like paid community in the form of a pregnancy doula or a postpartum doula. I definitely see more and more value in postpartum doulas. For sure. It may look a mom's group in your community.

(57:52): It may look like a religious faith community. Just don't do this alone. Get that help that you need in order to have the best pregnancy, the best birth, the best parenting experience. Alright, so there you have it. Please share this podcast with a friend. Also leave me a review and Apple Podcast. I love to hear what you think about the show and it helps other women to find the show and it really, really is important in helping the show to grow so that we can reach and serve as many people as possible. Do also check out the birth preparation course, my online childbirth education class that will get you calm, confident, and in empowered to have a beautiful birth. Check out all the details at drnicolerankins.com/enroll and use the code Dr. Nicole to get an additional 10% off. So that is it for this episode. Do come on back next week and remember that you deserve a beautiful pregnancy and birth.