Interviews are the usual starting line for pregnancy-discrimination suits and, more recently, FRD claims. I often get questions from clients or seminar attendees about the perils of interview questions.  A common theme is why is it that they shouldn’t ask candidates about their family, i.e., spouse, kids, etc. 

It seems natural. "Oh, I see you volunteer at the North East community center.  My kids take swimming lessons there.  Do your kids take any classes there?" Heck, I can give you a real-life example that happened to me last week. 

I was at the local greeting-card store.  As I was checking out, the [female] employee looks up and says enthusiastically, "Do you have any little ones at home?" 

I nearly choked on my Lifesaver.  I kid you not.  (No pun intended, really).  I stood there, mouth open, speechless. 

She turned around and grabbed a toy Schnauzer from a counter lined with little stuffed animals.  "You get one of these for free for a purchase of $20 or more."  I lifted my chin off the ground and nodded while she stuffed the toy toy (ok, pun intended) into my shopping bag. 

The employee was probably all of 23 years old.  She had no intention of forming opinions of me based on my answer to to her question.  She was just trying to give me the free toy.  But the question caught me off my guard. 

I can almost guarantee that if you went back to the store and asked her about it, she would have positively no idea who I was–one of many customers she’d seen that night.  She certainly would not recall what she’d said to me. 

It’s that easy.  Despite best intentions, it is so easy for an interviewer to ask a question that leads to a lawsuit.

Take the Pregnancy Discrimination Quiz at HR Hero and find out.

The HRhero.com website says this about the quiz:

Pregnant employees and those returning from maternity leave have rights regarding their employment. Check your knowledge of these rights by deciding how you would handle certain scenarios and then choosing the best answer.

The quiz was written by our own Adria Martinelli, who co-edits the Delaware Employment Law Letter with William W. Bowser and Scott A. Holt. 

Last month, Adria presented an audio conference on pregnancy discrimination, Pregnancy in the Workplace: Managing FMLA, ADA, and PDA Issues.  Adria also co-presented with Bill Bowser another terrific audio conference on pregnancy discrimination, Managing Pregnant Employees.  For more information about the conferences, see http://www.hrhero.com/audio/pregnancy/

Maternal Profiling (a subset of Family Responsibilities Discrimination, "FRD"), is employment discrimination against a woman who has, or will have, children.  Firing a newly pregnant employee. Interview questions designed to elicit details about child-care arrangements.  Just in time for Mother’s Day, here are some key points for employers about this type of workplace discrimination.

Profiles of Maternal Profiling

In late April 2008, ABC News aired a piece on World News With Charles Gibson about Maternal Profiling.  As a follow-up to the piece, the ABCNews website posted an article called, Are You a Victim of Maternal Profiling, featuring women from Pennsylvania who had personally experienced this type of discrimination.

One woman believed that she was having trouble landing a new job because she was the mother of three.  She indicated that interviewers would often ask her outright whether she had any children.  She said that one employer told her that it would cost too much in health care.

Can He Ask That?

Can employers ask candidates whether they have children, or whether they have adequate child-care arrangements?   The answer is "yes," much to the surprise of many, including many of my HR clients.  Some states do have laws that prohibit these questions from being asked during job interviews.  But neither Delaware nor Pennsylvania are included among them.  So the short answer is, Yes, employers may lawfully ask job candidates about their "family status," including questions about whether or not the applicant has children, is married, etc.

Like Mom Always Said, "Just because your friends jump off a cliff doesn’t mean you have to!"

We teach a lot of seminars.  We counsel a lot of employers.  We answer a lot of questions.  And I can say with great certainty that we would never, ever, ever, advise our clients to ask something as foolish as "Are you planning to have children?" to anyone, and certainly not to a potential or current employee!

Just because it’s legal doesn’t mean it’s smart, right?  No good can come of these questions.  So don’t ask them.  Just don’t do it. 

Pregnant Spanish Defense Minister Carme Chacon reviews troops in Madrid

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Pregnancy discrimination is making international headlines. Our friend and fellow Employers Counsel Network editor, John Phillips, posted an interesting article today on his blog, titled, “Questions About Pregnancy,” regarding pregnancy discrimination and Spain’s pregnant defense minister.

See my earlier post, “More Than Hollywood Noticing Baby Bump” regarding the alarming increase in pregnancy discrimination claims.

What exactly are your obligations to a pregnant employee?

Under the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA), you’re prohibited from treating pregnant employees differently than other employees with temporary restrictions. For example, if a pregnant employee is restricted from lifting more than 20 pounds during her last trimester, you must treat her the same as a male employee who suffered a back injury and was temporarily unable to lift the same amount.

The PDA does not require you to make special accommodations like the Americans with Disabilities Act does. It only requires you to treat pregnant employees the same as you would treat nonpregnant employees with temporary restrictions.

What can you do to avoid violating the PDA?

Here are some basic guidelines:

• Don’t discuss an applicant’s pregnancy with her at the employment interview or base your hiring decisions on her pregnancy or absences that may be caused by pregnancy.

• When an employee informs you that she’s pregnant, congratulate her. Don’t start interrogating her about the leave she will need or make any other comments about how her pregnancy might affect her job.

• Provide optional alternative jobs if the pregnant employee’s current position could be harmful to her fetus. Be aware, however, that the decision to change duties is hers, not yours.

• If a pregnant employee is unable to perform her job or requests light duty, treat her like you would any other employee in a similar situation.

• If you take any performance-related disciplinary actions during an employee’s pregnancy or maternity leave, do so cautiously! Make sure to document your actions, providing legitimate non-discriminatory reasons for the action.

Of course, dealing with pregnant employees may implicate other employment laws, including the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Family and Medical Leave Act. I will be presenting When FMLA and Pregnancy Leave Collide: How to Avoid Costly Discrimination Claims in Las Vegas and Nashville, TN at the upcoming Advanced Employment Issues Symposium. Click here for more details about the Symposiums.

Page D1 of today’s Wall Street Journal reports that:

A spike to record levels in pregnancy-discrimination complaints to regulators suggests more women are speaking up about suspected workplace bias.

Pregnancy-bias complaints recorded by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission surged 14% last year to 5,587, up 40% from a decade ago and the biggest annual increase in 13 years.

And that “may be only the tip of the iceberg,” an EEOC spokesman says. The agency also received 20,400 pregnancy-bias inquiries at its call center last year, the center’s first full year of operation; that doesn’t include thousands more walk-ins asking about the same topic at fair-employment offices. An advocacy group, 9to5, National Association of Working Women, also is seeing an increase in pregnancy-bias calls on its hotline.

I have seen a huge surge in pregnancy discrimination claims in my practice as well. The WSJ attributes the groundswell to “both changing demographics and a new activism among mothers.” Employees’ awareness of the law in this area may have been further heightened by the EEOC’s Guidance on Discrimination of Workers with Caregiving Responsibilities, issued in May of 2007. The EEOC’s guidance devoted considerable attention to pregnancy discrimination claims.

I will be speaking on pregnancy discrimination at several upcoming seminars. Click on the links to learn more about opportunities to learn on this important topic: Pregnancy in the Workplace: Manage FMLA, ADA, and PDA Issues Audioconference on April 8 - learn about pregnancy discrimination from the comfort of your own desk! The Advanced Employment Issues Symposium on September 25-26 in Las Vegas, and October 16-17 in Nashville, TN offer additional opportunities to learn more about pregnancy discrimination.

On March 5, 2008, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) issued its annual Enforcement and Litigation Statistics for 2007 FY. The results were nothing to cheer about–especially for employers.

Number of Charges Filed

The EEOC received a total of 82,792 private sector discrimination charge filings last fiscal year. This is the highest volume of incoming charges since 2002. It is also the largest annual increase (9%) since the early 1990s.

Financial Recovery
These charges resulted in $345 million recovered by the Commission on behalf of claimants. This is a 6% increase from 2006FY

Types of Discrimination Alleged
According to the EEOC’s FY 2007 data, allegations of discrimination based on race, retaliation, and sex were the most frequently filed charges. These statistics are consistent with results from recent years.
But one statistic that has changed, although not surprisingly so, is in the retaliation category. Last year, for the first time, retaliation was the second highest charge category (behind race), surpassing sex-based charges. Historically, race has been the most frequently filed charge since the EEOC became operational in 1965.

Pregnancy- and gender-based claims, which includes sexual harassment also continued its climb upward. During FY 2007, pregnancy charges surged to a record high level of 5,587. This was a 14% increase from last year. Sexual harassment filings increased for the first time in seven years, numbering 12,510 – up 4%.

Another interesting factoid: a record 16% of sexual harassment charges were filed by men, up from 9% in the early 1990s.

And, so what?
What do the statistics mean to employers? They mean that discrimination issues are not going away on their own. Employers need to take these statistics seriously when planning for their new fiscal year. It means that supervisors and managers who work directly on the front line need to be properly trained in the laws that put your company at risk.