Dive Brief:
- The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has agreed to pay $45 million to settle allegations the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency — an agency within DHS — discriminated against pregnant workers, according to a Tuesday news release from the plaintiffs’ counsel.
- A class of 1,000 CBP workers alleged the agency violated the Pregnancy Discrimination Act by placing pregnant officers and agriculture specialists on light duty without allowing them to choose to remain in their regular roles, with or without an accommodation. Placing those workers on involuntary light duty limited their ability to earn overtime and extra pay for working at night or on Sundays and was at odds with how the agency treated other short-term disabilities, attorneys for the plaintiffs said in the release.
- Under the settlement, CBP will institute a new policy that allows pregnant officers and agriculture specialists to remain in their positions, provides accommodations for pregnant workers and training for managers and supervisors on reasonable accommodations and permits pregnant workers on light duty to return to their positions, according to the release. DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Dive Insight:
The case was first filed in 2016 with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. An EEOC Administrative Judge certified the case as a class action in April 2023, a decision CBP appealed.
In August 2023, EEOC said the class-action case could proceed and held that the administrative judge had correctly identified that the class of employees satisfied the numerosity, commonality and typicality requirements for class certification.
The settlement should receive final approval in September, plaintiffs’ counsel said.
“CBP has a well-documented history of forcibly sidelining their employees when they report their pregnancies. This policy created tremendous emotional and economic harm for these women, and we are pleased to have secured justice and accountability for their mistreatment,” Shannon Leary, partner at Gilbert Employment Law and chair of its LGBTQ+ and Gender Issues practice, said in a statement. “This settlement is about more than rectifying a discriminatory practice — it’s about making the entire agency a fair workplace for everyone.”
Joseph Sellers, partner at Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll and co-chair of its Civil Rights & Employment practice, said the reforms agreed to in the settlement should make CBP “a leader among law enforcement agencies in providing equal opportunities for pregnant employees to thrive and be regarded as equally capable of performing their jobs as their non-pregnant colleagues.”
Under the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, employers can’t discriminate against employees on the basis of pregnancy or related medical conditions, such as by giving them lesser assignments due to their pregnancy, according to EEOC guidance.