Thursday is turning out to be a moment of truth in a yearslong fight for federal legislation that would expand key job protections for working parents.
The Senate has voted to include the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act as an amendment to Congress’s 2023 omnibus spending package. The vote on Thursday was 73 to 24, meaning it garnered significant bipartisan support. And in another surprise—also with bipartisan support—the Senate voted to include the Providing Urgent Maternal Protections for Nursing Mothers, or PUMP, Act as an amendment to the package. Both proposals have been championed by workers’ rights advocates as a significant step forward.
The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which was first introduced in 2012 after a workers-advocacy group began demanding action from Congress, would stop employers from forcing out pregnant workers, or denying reasonable accommodations so they can maintain healthy pregnancies while they continue working.
It has enjoyed a long, weird path ever since, however. The law seemingly had the key ingredients to prevail on the Hill—bipartisan support (senators in both parties supported 2021’s version, which the House passed 315-to-101), plus backing from right-leaning industry groups (like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce), religious groups (the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops), civil-rights groups (the ACLU), and unions (the National Education Association)—which is why its failure to succeed up until now has puzzled advocates.
Earlier this month, the law was left out of the omnibus bill, angering an ideologically disparate group of supporters. “A devastating blow to women and families,” A Better Balance, the law’s primary driver, said. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce—pretty pro-employer, as a rule—lamented in a statement that the law “highlights that through good-faith negotiations, legislative solutions to important questions and problems can be achieved,” noting it “worked extensively with advocates for this bill to find agreement.”
At the time, Senator Bill Cassidy, the legislation’s Republican sponsor, expressed frustration that colleagues weren’t voting for a bill to protect pregnant workers and their unborn children, calling it “pro-family, pro-mother, pro-baby, pro-employer, and pro-economy.”
The difficult process in getting the amendment included has again underscored how onerous passing laws in the United States can be.
With Democrats losing their House majority in January, some supporters had been arguing that the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act was living on borrowed time. They criticized Republican lawmakers for fighting to force workers to give birth, but then blocking legislation that would provide those workers with “reasonable accommodations” while they’re pregnant, such as the right to more frequent bathroom breaks.
The Senate has been scrambling to pass the $1.7 trillion spending package before the deadline on Friday night and as a major winter storm is bearing down on much of the country. It passed on Thursday with a vote of 68-29. The legislation heads to the House next and, if all goes well, then to President Biden’s desk for his signature.
This story is developing…
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