PWFA eligibility: Who qualifies?

Q          Do employees have to be employed for 12 months or work 1,250 hours to qualify for the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA), or do they qualify as soon as they begin employment?

No, there’s no length-of-employment or minimum-hours-worked requirement for eligibility under the PWFA. The length-of-employment and minimum-hours-worked requirements are those associated with the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), which aren’t applicable to the PWFA.

The PWFA protects qualified employees and even qualified applicants, who are identified in the PWFA as employees/applicants who can perform the essential functions of the job with or without a reasonable accommodation and employees who can’t perform the essential functions of the job, as long as the inability is temporary; the employees could perform the functions in the near future; and the inability can be reasonably accommodated.

Martin J. Regimbal, a shareholder of The Kullman Firm in Columbus, Mississippi, may be reached at mjr@kullmanlaw.com.