The PWFA is a vital tool in the fight for Black maternal health and economic justice, ensuring pregnant workers receive the accommodations they need to stay healthy and financially secure.
The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) is a groundbreaking civil rights law ensuring pregnant and postpartum workers have the right to reasonable workplace accommodations. Bipartisan, pro-family and boldly feminist, the PWFA is both a lesson in democracy and a battleground for its defense against antidemocratic attacks. This essay is a part of our latest installment of Women & Democracy, produced in partnership with A Better Balance, which explores the law’s decade-long fight the law’s passage, its impact—particularly on Black women—and the organizing strategies shaping its future.
The enactment of the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) marked a pivotal advance in safeguarding the health and economic security of Black mothers and their families.
Black women are disproportionately represented in low-wage, physically demanding jobs where workplace accommodations are often necessary but frequently unavailable. The absence of such accommodations has been linked to adverse maternal and infant health outcomes, including increased risk of preterm birth, low birth weight and miscarriage. Health professionals consistently recommend that some pregnant individuals adjust their work activities to sustain a healthy pregnancy and prevent such outcomes.
The PWFA addresses these concerns by requiring employers to provide essential accommodations, such as allowing a pregnant worker to carry a bottle of water, providing a private space to pump breastmilk or guaranteeing job-protected time off for prenatal and postnatal appointments. These provisions are crucial in combating the maternal morbidity and mortality crisis in the U.S., where pregnancy-related mortality rates among Black women are over three times higher than those for white women.
Beyond health implications, the PWFA is vital for the economic security of Black women, who are more likely to be primary caregivers and breadwinners in their families. Without necessary accommodations, pregnant workers may face the untenable choice between maintaining their health and keeping their jobs, leading to missed paychecks or forced unemployment. This exacerbates existing gender and racial wage gaps and deepens financial inequities faced by Black women and their families.
Consider the experience of Natasha Jackson, a warehouse worker in the U.S. During her pregnancy, Jackson requested, and was denied, a temporary reassignment to lighter duties, as her role involved heavy lifting that posed risks to her health.
As many states, particularly in the South, continue to limit or deny access to vital reproductive healthcare, laws like the PWFA become even more essential. Restrictive policies on abortion access, family planning services and maternal healthcare disproportionately impact Black women, who already face systemic inequities in healthcare access. Without comprehensive reproductive health support, workplace accommodations become a crucial safeguard to ensure that pregnant workers can manage their health and well-being without undue burden.
Moreover, the erosion of reproductive rights intensifies economic and health vulnerabilities for Black women. When access to abortion and other maternal health services is restricted, more Black women are forced to carry pregnancies to term in environments where they may not receive adequate medical care or workplace protections. The PWFA empowers Black mothers to advocate for their health without fearing retaliation or job loss when requesting reasonable accommodations. In doing so, it acts as a critical countermeasure to a landscape increasingly hostile to reproductive autonomy. These protections are indispensable for the health and economic security of Black mothers and must be preserved in their entirety. Any attempts to weaken or dismantle the PWFA would have severe consequences for those already navigating systemic inequities in both employment and healthcare access.
The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act represents a significant step toward addressing the systemic inequities that contribute to the nation’s maternal morbidity and mortality crisis. By ensuring that pregnant workers receive reasonable accommodations, the PWFA promotes healthier pregnancies and bolsters the economic stability of Black families. It is imperative that we uphold and defend this law against any challenges, recognizing its crucial role in advancing health equity and economic justice for Black mothers and their babies.