Lawmakers passed the bill, H.136, by a vote of 97 to 44. That came after they rejected a Republican motion to send the bill to the House Appropriations Committee. The vote on the motion was 91 to 54.
Rep. Anne Donahue, R-Northfield, a lawyer and mental health advocate, had raised questions about whether the language in the bill gave pregnant women more rights than people with disabilities, for whom employers must provide reasonable accommodations under the Americans With Disabilities Act.
Donahue said the bill would create a new accommodation for pregnant workers called “job restructuring” that does not exist in disability law. “If this were about conversations with an employer for accommodations, we already have that law,” she said.
The bill “could go well beyond that, and in fact, we don’t really know how far beyond that it could go because we’re going way beyond current law. There’s no definition in the statute of what ‘job restructuring’ means,” Donahue said.
“We could be talking about very significant amounts of money, as yet unknown, as would need to be determined by (the House Appropriations Committee), because this goes far beyond any existing law and mandates on employers,” she said.
Rep. Kiah Morris, D-Bennington, said the bill allows women to continue working through their pregnancy if they choose to. She said that when she was pregnant, her own employer worked with her to set maternity leave and other accommodations.
Rep. George Till, D-Jericho, is an obstetrician and gynecologist who sponsored the bill. “If men carried pregnancies instead of the women, the species would be gone, and I think there’s proof of that,” he said.
Till said he has written doctor’s orders for numerous pregnant women who were not able to get their employers to accommodate them. He cited four cases that stood out to him, including a cashier whose boss refused to provide her a stool, and a nurse who was fired when she told her employer she couldn’t lift more than 50 pounds without help.
“It’s sad,” he said. “These are really minor accommodations, but some employers just won’t do it. … Now, I get people who don’t want a doctor’s note because they’re afraid to even ask — they’re afraid to even ask their employers for an accommodation.”
Till added: “I would encourage you to support the pregnant ladies of Vermont, vote for this bill, and I’m sure the pregnant women are watching closely who has their backs and who doesn’t.”
The bill now moves to the Senate.
