What Laws To Expect When You’re Expecting?
If you’re planning to have a child, which state in the USA, will offer you the best advantages from a work perspective?
Without any doubt, it is the state of California. I hope that’s really not a ‘Eureka’ moment for you.
If you wanna check out, what’s plate for you under CA laws during your maternity period, scroll down..!!
California Maternity and Pregnancy Related Laws Relating to Work
a) Maternity Leave
In California, expecting mothers are entitled to maternity leave for more than the mere childbirth itself. They have a right to time off for disabilities related to the pregnancy and childbirth.
A California employee has therefore access to two kinds of leave, governed by two sets of laws. These two kinds of leave are cumulative.
a. Family Care Leave
b. Disability Leave
Governed By,
I. Family and Medical Care Leave Act/California Family Rights Act Leave (“FMLA/CFRA”)
II. Pregnancy Disability Leave (PDL)- governed by the Fair Employment and Housing Act (called “FEHA”)
I. FMLA and CFRA
Applicable to: All Employers where 50 more employees are employed.
FMLA and CFRA guarantee eligible employees an unpaid, job-protected family or medical leave of absence for a maximum of twelve weeks within a rolling twelve-month period measured backward from the actual date she starts to use any FMLA/CFRA leave. Also referred to as Baby bonding leave and Family care leave. This is granted after the child birth, to bond with the child and family.
The family care leave is available for during any 12-month period because of: the birth of a son or daughter of the employee and in order to care for such son or daughter; the placement of a son or daughter with the employee for adoption or foster care; care necessary for one’s self or a son or daughter, if he or she has a serious health condition.
Eligibility Criteria for employees to avail CFRA benefits:
Employee must;
(1) have been employed for at least twelve months within the past five years; (2) have worked at least 1,250 hours in the year preceding the request for leave, and
(3) Work for an employer that has at least 49 employees (including part-time employees) within 75 miles of the workplace.
II. Pregnancy Disability Leave (“PDL”)
Applicable to: All Employers where more than five employees are employed.
Eligibility Criteria: An employee is eligible for PDL even if she do not qualify for FMLA/CFRA. A woman who works for a covered employer is eligible for PDL regardless of the length of time she has worked for the employer. Further, an employee does not have to work full-time in order to be eligible.
· The Pregnancy Disability Leave (PDL) law requires California employers with five or more employees to provide up to four months of job-protected disability leave to women who are disabled due to pregnancy, child birth, or related medical conditions.
· This leave can be taken intermittently, meaning that can be used for appointments with doctor or midwife, or for a particularly awful bout of morning sickness.
· This leave entitlement is independent of any leave for which the employee may qualify under the FMLA and CFRA and does not run concurrently with FMLA/CFRA leave.
· To take PDL, companies can require that employees should obtain a medical certification from a health care provider.
· Generally, for normal pregnancies, providers will certify a leave of up to four weeks before birth, and six weeks after birth, or eight weeks after a C-section. The maximum possible leave is four months for pregnancy disability under the PDL, if medically required.
· If the employee takes PDL, employer must hold her job open for you so that you can return to it at the end of your leave. If your employer eliminates your position, it must offer you a position that is comparable in terms of pay, job content, opportunity for promotion, and location unless no such position exists.
Other points to consider:
· If an employee is eligible for PDL and CFRA leave, the employee can stack them together.
· There is no requirement that an employer should pay during the pregnancy-related leave. That is the PDL and CFRA leaves are unpaid leave.
· The employer may require the employee to use up her sick leave during her PDL period.
· However, the employee may elect to use her vacation leave during PDL period in order to receive compensation, considering PDL is unpaid.
· If the employer provides paid leave for other types of temporary disabilities, the employer must also provide paid maternity leave.
· If the employee has group health coverage provided by their employer, the coverage must continue during the maternity leave. The scope of the coverage must be the same as if the employee hadn’t taken maternity leave at all.
What if the employee is eligible for both PDL and CFRA leave benefits?
If an employee is entitled to both PDL and CFRA leave, the employee can stack them together.
CFRA baby bonding leave starts only after a woman’s healthcare provider has released her to return to work, which is typically six to eight weeks after the birth of a baby. So, for example, if the doctor releases her to return to work six weeks after the birth, she is entitled to six weeks of PDL plus an additional twelve weeks of CFRA leave, for a total of eighteen weeks of leave after the baby’s birth. Both unpaid.
What if the employee is eligible for only one of the two?
If the employee meets the requirements under the FMLA or CFRA- 12 weeks of unpaid, job protected bonding leave after the birth of your child for a 12 month period.
If she don’t meet the FMLA/CFRA requirements,
The employee can take unpaid, job protected leave under the PDL for the time she is disabled by the pregnancy, for up to four months.
What about the Husband?
Both parents are eligible for FMLA/CFRA baby bonding leave/Family care leave.
A parent may take the leave at any time in the first year after his or her baby is born. (However, if both parents work for the same employer, the two parents are only entitled to a combined total of twelve weeks.)
Vacation Pay and Sick Pay during Maternity Period
a. Sick pay.
An employer may require the employee to use accrued sick pay or sick leave time during the otherwise unpaid portion of her PDL. Employees may also opt to use their sick pay during this time, regardless of whether their employer requires it.
b. Vacation pay.
Employers may not require employees to use their vacation pay during maternity leave. Employees can elect, at their option, however, to use their vacation pay. The choice lays solely with the employee.
b. Reasonable Accommodation
Applicable to: All Employers
The employer must provide the employee reasonable accommodations, including temporary transfer. If the employee have work restrictions related to her pregnancy, she may request a reasonable accommodation and the employer is required to make the requested accommodation unless it poses an undue hardship on the employer.
Reasonable accommodations may include temporarily modifying the work duties, providing her with a stool or chair, or allowing her to take more frequent breaks. The employer can ask for verification of her limitations, but only from her own medical provider and not from any medical practitioner assigned by the employer.
c. Temporary Transfer
Applicable to: All Employers
Under California law, an employer may not refuse an employee’s request, on the advice of doctor, for a temporary transfer to a less strenuous or hazardous position, so long as the transfer request can be reasonably accommodated without an undue hardship to the employer.
The key to this rule is the word “reasonably” — where the employer needn’t create a new position, discharge any other employee, transfer any employee with more seniority, or promote an employee who is not qualified to perform the job.
d. Sexual Harassment
Applicable to: All Employers
Pregnancy doesn’t excuse harassment. Harassing or unwelcome conduct relating to pregnancy is illegal if it creates a hostile, intimidating, or offensive work environment, or if it interferes with your performance at work.
If a supervisor is harassing the employee, then the employer is responsible, even if they didn’t know about the harassment.
Harassment by a co-worker who is not your supervisor is unlawful if your employer knew or should have known about the conduct, unless the employer shows it took immediate, appropriate steps to address the harassment.
e. Pregnancy Related Discrimination
Applicable to: All Employers
Pregnancy-based discrimination is illegal.
It is illegal for the employer to discriminate against an employee because the employee is pregnant.
California law prohibits employers from discriminating against pregnant employees with respect to training, compensation, or virtually any other aspect of employment.
The employer may not fire or demote an employee because of pregnancy.
The employer also may not take away job responsibilities or deny a promotion.
It is also illegal for an employer not to offer you employment because of pregnancy.
f. Breastfeeding Rights
Applicable to: All Employers
Every employer, including the state, shall provide a reasonable amount of unpaid break time or allow to use existing paid break time to accommodate an employee desiring to express breast milk for the employee’s infant child.
The employer must make reasonable efforts to provide a room, other than a toilet stall, close to the work area, for an employee to express breast milk in private. The location may include the place where the employee normally works if it otherwise meets these requirements.
g. Family Temporary Disability Insurance
Applicable to: All Employers
Even though pregnant employees do not always have a right to pay from their employers during maternity leave, California employees have a right to California’s state disability insurance. California considers pregnancy a temporary disability, as well as any illness or injury resulting from pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical condition. So employees often have a right to disability insurance. An individual shall be deemed disabled on any day in which, because of his or her physical or mental condition, he or she is unable to perform his or her regular or customary work.
An individual shall be deemed eligible for family temporary disability insurance benefits equal to one-seventh of his or her weekly benefit amount when he or she is unable to perform his or her work because he or she is bonding with a minor child during the first year after birth or placement in connection with foster care or adoption, or caring for a seriously ill child.
h. School and Child Care Activity Leave
Applicable to: All Employers with 25 or more employees
No employer shall discriminate against an employee who is a parent, guardian, or grandparent having custody of one or more children in school or child day care, for taking off up to 40 hours each year, not exceeding eight hours a month, to participate in activities of any of his or her children, if the employee gives reasonable notice.
The employee shall utilize existing vacation, personal leave, or compensatory time off, or time without pay.
Any employee who is discriminated against because the employee has taken time off to participate in school activities shall be entitled to reinstatement and reimbursement for lost wages and work benefits caused by the acts of the employer.
i) Sick Leave
Applicable to: All Employers
Any employer who provides sick leave for employees shall permit an employee to use accrued and available sick leave, in an amount not less than the sick leave accrued during six months, to attend to an illness of a child.
Child means a biological, foster, or adopted child, a stepchild, a legal ward, a child of a domestic partner, or a child of a person standing in loco parentis.
Can Maternity Leave Be Earned?
No. California’s law requiring employers to give maternity leave applies to all female employees — no matter how long they have worked for the employer.
Are expecting mothers required to give employers advance notice of maternity leave?
In general, expecting mothers should give their employers as much notice as possible if maternity leave is foreseeable. The expecting mothers is expected to provide employers with as much as 30 days advance notice of the maternity leave, if possible.
