The Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 forbids companies with 15 or more employees to fire, demote or refuse to hire or promote women because they are pregnant. But that hasn't slowed discrimination complaints.
 

Monique Randall worked until the day her son, Hunter, was born and looked forward to a peaceful maternity leave.

Instead, she said, her boss called her at home with questions and harassing comments. He told her he was giving her clients to other salespeople at the Orlando pre-press company.

"He said he knew I wouldn't be working as hard and calling in sick all the time because my son would be sick," said Randall, 30 whose son was born in 1996, "I knew he just wanted me to quit. I just packed my bags and got out of there. I didn't need that."

Randall considered suing the now-defunct company for discrimination. But, overwhelmed with the responsibilities of motherhood and the need to find a new job, she quickly gave up that idea.

"I didn't know what my rights were, and I figured it would be expensive to hire an attorney," said Randall, now an Orlando advertising director.

With women making up 49 percent of the U.S. work force, and more than 2-million of them having babies each year, such scenarios are increasingly common, experts say.

About 4,200 pregnancy-discrimination complaints are field annually with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and other agencies, an increase of more than 25 percent since 1992.

Although about half those complaints are dismissed, mostly because of lack of evidence, they still are considered only a fraction of the incidents of discrimination that occur. As Randall's experience illustrates, most victims of workplace pregnancy discrimination don't fight back.

"When they file with the EEOC, that's a last resort," agency spokesman David Grinberg said. "Women may fear retaliation, or they may try to resolve the problem within the company."

Many employees don't realize that pregnancy discrimination is illegal. But it has been illegal since 1978, when the federal government passed the Pregnancy Discrimination Act.

The law forbids companies with 15 or more employees to fire, demote or refuse to hire or promote women because they are pregnant. Moms-to-be and new moms in the workplace also are entitled to the same benefits that a company grants to other temporarily disabled workers.

Nearly 25 years later, however, old attitudes persist in some workplaces about a pregnant woman's or new mother's fitness to do the job.

Of course, in some cases, it's not a good idea to work while expecting. A doctor may order bed rest for a high-risk pregnancy.

Physically demanding work, long hours or long periods of standing can result in premature labor or other complications.

And no pregnant woman should work around toxic substances, the Centers for Disease control and Prevention warns.

The majority of pregnancies, however, present no physical reason for a woman to quit working. Instead, the barriers they face are bosses.

"With more and more women in the workplace and trying to balance work and family, it's not surprising that many of them are confronting pregnancy discrimination," said Adrienne DerVartanian, policy counsel for the National Partnership for Women & Families in Washington.

Some high-profile pregnancy-discrimination lawsuits the EEOC has settled recently are enough to make any employer nervous.

Delta Air Lines settled a lawsuit for $150,000 in March after being accused of firing a pregnant ramp agent at Reagan National Airport in Washington and forcing another to take unpaid medical leave.

In February, Verizon agreed to pay what is estimated to be millions of dollars to settle a class-action lawsuit by thousands of female former employees who claim they were denied maternity-related benefits.

And in Orlando, a jury in February order CFI/Westgate Resorts to pay $494,500 to a former employee who lost her job when she was seven months pregnant.

June Kleier started at Westgate in 1993 as a time-share saleswoman and was promoted several times, eventually being named a general manager at Westgate lakes in November 1997.

It was a coup in a workplace with few women in upper management, she said.

"It was definitely a boys' club," said Kleier, 34, of Ocoee.

Armed with a five-year employment contract in January 1998 for nearly $120,000 a year, Kleier felt confident enough to plan her first pregnancy. She and her husband, Robert, had been married seven years, and June was the breadwinner at the time. Four months later Kathryn was conceived

Everything continued to go well at work, Kleier said, until she started showing later that fall and announced her pregnancy.

One day not long after that, one of her bosses summoned her to his office and said her job was being eliminated. He offered her two choices: Accept a demotion and pay cut of nearly $30,000, or be fired. Kleier refused to choose. She said she was fired: Westgate said she quit.

"The only thing that had changed was the fact that I was pregnant," said Kleier, who now runs a sales-training company from her home. When I started wearing maternity clothes, within weeks I was terminated….I think they used my pregnancy to convince upper management, "Hey, she's not going to work as hard."

Kleier sits on her sofa cradling her sleeping 1-year old son Robby, on her shoulder as she talks. Robby's older sister, Kathryn, naps in another room. The pigtailed girl, who wasn't yet born when her mother launched a legal battle against the multi-million-dollar company, turned 3 two days before Kleier won her lawsuit6.

Kleier had filed a discrimination complaint with the EEOC but ultimately decided to sue for breach of contract, rather than discrimination. The breach-of-contract suit would be faster, said her attorney, Tommy Roebig of Palm Harbor.

Michael Marder, the Orlando attorney for Westgate, said Kleier's job loss "had absolutely nothing to do with pregnancy." He said her employment contract included a stipulation that it could be modified and that Westgate would appeal the verdict.