Accommodating a Pregnant Tech

Why this matters

A pregnant tech who is handled well keeps working for most of the pregnancy, comes back afterwards, and tells every other tradeswoman she knows which shop to work for. One handled badly is either put on unpaid leave she did not ask for, which since 2023 is usually a violation of federal law for shops with 15 or more employees, or left on a route that no longer suits her body until something goes wrong. The process that separates the two is not complicated. It is a conversation, a task-by-task look at the job, a written plan, and a review date, and the steps below are in the order the law and the work both need them.

This card covers the process. The hazards themselves, and which law reaches which size of shop, are in the sibling. See related: Pregnancy and Trade Work.

Step 1: Treat the first mention as the request

Under the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which covers employers with 15 or more employees, the duty starts when she communicates a limitation, and she does not have to use any particular words. "I can't really be in crawlspaces right now" or "the cement smell under sinks is getting to me" is a request. So is a message from her partner or her clinician on her behalf.

Why first: the clock on your response starts with that sentence, not with a form. A shop that waits for a formal request has already delayed.

What breaks if you skip it: "she never actually asked" is the most common reason a shop ends up with a PWFA charge it thought it had no part in. Unnecessary delay in responding can itself be a violation under the EEOC's regulations.

Answer within a day or two: "Thanks for telling me. Let's sit down this week and work out what changes."

Step 2: Meet, and ask about limits, not about the pregnancy

Private, short, and focused on the work. Ask what she is finding hard or has been told to avoid, what she thinks would help, and whether her clinician has said anything specific. Do not ask about her plans after birth, her partner, her due date beyond what bears on scheduling, or whether she intends to come back.

Documentation. You may ask for supporting documentation only when it is reasonable under the circumstances, and only enough to confirm the limitation and the need for a change. The EEOC's regulations say you generally should not require it when the limitation is obvious, when the accommodation is one of the simple ones the rule names (more breaks for water, food or the restroom, carrying a water bottle, sitting or standing as needed), when it is lactation-related, or when it is something you let other employees do without a note. Asking for a doctor's note to let her keep a water bottle in the van is the kind of request the rule was written to stop.

Why second: the meeting tells you what the job actually needs to change. The note, where reasonable, confirms it.

What breaks if you skip it: owners who skip the conversation guess, and guesses run protective. A unilateral "you're off install work" is exactly what the law forbids, and Title VII's pregnancy discrimination rule has barred fetal-protection decisions made for a woman since the Supreme Court's 1991 Johnson Controls decision.

Step 3: Put in an interim change today

If a note will take two weeks, she should not spend two weeks on the work she just told you is a problem. Make a temporary change now on her word, and say it is temporary pending the clinician.

Why third: the EEOC's regulations encourage interim accommodation while documentation is pending, and it is the cheapest insurance in the process: a week of rearranged calls against an exposure or a fall that cannot be undone.

What breaks if you skip it: she keeps doing the task until the paperwork arrives, which is the only stretch of the pregnancy where the risk was known and nothing changed.

Step 4: Lay her limits against the role, task by task

Take the role's physical demands description and the real ticket mix for her last four weeks, and mark each task: unchanged, changed with a control, or off for now. The sibling article builds that exposure list from tickets; use its counts, not a description of the job from memory. See related: Writing a Physical Demands Description for Each Role.

Why fourth: the accommodation is whatever closes the gap between her limits and the specific tasks. Without the task list, every option is generic.

What breaks if you skip it: you offer "lighter duty" with no definition, and the dispatcher, under Monday pressure, sends her to a water heater swap because nobody wrote down that tank lifts were off.

Step 5: Offer options that keep her working

Options most field shops can actually run:

• Route mix: maintenance visits, diagnostics, warranty checks and quoting replacements instead of installs, heavy repairs, or crawlspace work.
• Two-person rule: any lift over the limit her clinician gave goes to two people, and dispatch builds it into the schedule rather than leaving it to whoever is nearby.
• Height: no extension ladders or roof work; step ladders only to a set height if her clinician agrees.
• Chemicals: someone else does the solvent cementing on her calls, or she uses low-solvent products with the space ventilated, per what her clinician says about exposure.
• Heat: no attics in the hot part of the day; early-morning attic calls only, or none.
• Breaks and the van: scheduled stops for food, water and the restroom; a lighter, better-organized van.
• Off the truck: training apprentices, quality ride-alongs, dispatch support, or the estimating desk.

Temporary suspension of an essential function. Where she cannot do a core part of the job for a while, the PWFA allows you to set that function aside temporarily if she is expected to be able to do it again in the near future and the work can be covered. The EEOC's regulations at 29 CFR Part 1636 treat the near future for a current pregnancy as generally 40 weeks from when the suspension starts.

Leave is last. The PWFA bars requiring her to take leave if another reasonable accommodation would let her keep working. Leave becomes an accommodation when she asks for it or nothing else works.

Pay. If her pay includes commission, spiffs or install bonuses, say up front what a changed route does to her earnings. A route change that quietly halves what she takes home reads as a penalty, and whether it is lawful is a question for counsel before you implement it, not after.

What breaks if you skip it: a single take-it-or-leave-it offer. You are allowed to choose between effective options, including one that is not her first choice, but you have to have looked.

Step 6: Write the plan and set the review dates

One page: the limitations as she or her clinician described them, the tasks changed and how, who covers what, the start date, and review dates. Review every four weeks, at the start of each trimester, whenever she or her clinician changes the limits, and before she returns after birth, when the federal PUMP for Nursing Mothers Act, enforced by the Department of Labor, adds break time and a private space, not a bathroom, to express milk. Keep it in a confidential medical file, separate from the personnel file, and give dispatch only the operational part ("no lifts over the limit, no ladders over 6 ft, no attics after 10 a.m."), not the medical reasons.

Why last: the plan is the output of the steps above. Written before them, it is a template with her name on it.

What breaks if you skip it: limits that drift. A pregnancy changes week to week, and a plan written in week 11 is wrong by week 28 unless somebody is scheduled to look again.

A worked run

Maria is an HVAC service tech at a 22-person shop, so the PWFA applies, along with whatever her state adds. At 11 weeks she tells the service manager on a Thursday that crawlspaces and the brazing smoke on install assists are making her sick and her midwife told her to avoid lifting heavy equipment.

• Step 1. The manager answers that afternoon and books a meeting for Monday.
• Step 3, before step 2. Interim change effective Friday on her word: no crawlspaces, no install assists. Two calls are moved.
• Step 2. On Monday they meet. The manager asks for a short note from her midwife on lifting and height, which is reasonable here because the change to the install work is significant, and does not ask for one about the water bottle or extra stops.
• Step 4. Her last four weeks: 80 calls, an average of 20 a week. Per week, about 8 repairs, 6 maintenance visits, 4 install assists and 2 crawlspace calls. That is 8 plus 6 plus 4 plus 2, which is 20.
• The note, week 13. No repeated lifting over a stated weight, no ladders above 6 ft from week 20, limit solvent and fume exposure.
• Step 5. The revised week: 12 maintenance, 4 repairs on equipment that does not need a crawlspace or a roof, no install assists, and 4 hours on the estimating desk quoting replacements she has diagnosed. That is 16 calls instead of 20: the 4 install assists, the 2 crawlspace calls and 4 of the 8 repairs leave her route, 6 more maintenance visits join it, and the 10 calls she gave up go to techs who had room. Her week stays at 40 hours. Her pay plan has a small spiff on maintenance agreements sold and none on installs, so her earnings are close to unchanged; the manager tells her that in the meeting rather than letting her find out from a paycheck.
• Step 6. Plan written, reviews set for weeks 17, 20, 24, 28 and 32, and on any change. At week 20 the ladder limit starts and two of her repairs that week turn out to need a roof; dispatch swaps them. At week 32 her midwife adds a limit on driving hours, and she moves to two days on the truck and three on the estimating desk.

What changes the answer. At 12 employees in a state with no pregnancy accommodation law of its own, none of this would be legally required, though most of it would still be good business; at 12 employees in New York, Illinois or California, a state law would require much of it. If the estimating desk did not exist and no route could be built inside her limits, suspending the field function and offering the training role would come before leave.

Where to stop and call someone. This is not legal advice. Talk to an employment attorney or your payroll provider's HR service before you deny a requested accommodation, claim undue hardship, require leave, change her pay, or take any discipline during the pregnancy. Walk in with the written plan, the note, the task list, and the dates of each conversation.

References

• EEOC, Pregnant Workers Fairness Act and regulations at 29 CFR Part 1636 (documentation, interim accommodation, temporary suspension, leave)
• U.S. Department of Labor, PUMP for Nursing Mothers Act (break time and space after birth)
• Title VII Pregnancy Discrimination Act; UAW v. Johnson Controls (1991)
• See related: Pregnancy and Trade Work
• See related: Writing a Physical Demands Description for Each Role