For Immediate Release: May 28, 2013
Contact: Elizabeth Gedmark, egedmark@abetterbalance.org, 212-430-5982
A Better Balance Releases: 5 Facts You Didn’t Know About Pregnancy & Parenting in the Workplace and Infographics
Launch New Book, Babygate: What You Really Need to Know About Pregnancy and Parenting in the American Workplace.
New York, NY –. While we are inundated with advice from famous working moms, the vast majority of working women do not know their rights about workplace laws and protections. For expecting and new parents this can be a confusing time. But authors of a new book Babygate: What You Really Need to Know About Pregnancy and Parenting in the American Workplace, are working to change that.
The authors, Dina Bakst, Phoebe Taubman and Elizabeth Gedmark, are lawyers who work at A Better Balance, an organization that fights for more family-friendly policies and provides legal assistance to low-income individuals.
Babygate explains what moms really need to know in order to keep their jobs when pregnant or returning from maternity leave. It helps millions of parents understand what is missing in parenting literature. The authors use real-life stories to illustrate the challenges facing working families in the United States.
While the Sheryl Sandberg debate rages on, everyday workers often go unnoticed. This book and tips below, address their needs.
A Better Balance has released today:
5 Facts You Didn’t Know About Pregnancy & Parenting in the American Workplace
1. If you are diagnosed with a pregnancy-related “disability”, you may be entitled to a reasonable accommodation at work under federal law. Women with “normal” pregnancies are not entitled to the same explicit protections and often find themselves out of luck.
2. Disability benefits for pregnancy and childbirth do not guarantee job protection — take the money, but there is no promise you’ll have your job back upon your return!
3. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, most workers can NOT be required to pump breast milk in the bathroom! Your boss must give you a clean, private space other than a bathroom, where you can pump milk without interruption.
4. Depending on where you live, you may be entitled to over $1,000 a week in benefits while out of work for maternity leave — or nothing.
5. The United States lags behind other countries in just about every category of family-friendly policies; we stand with Swaziland and Papua New Guinea as one of the only countries in the world to not guarantee any form of paid maternity leave.
Three attorneys from a legal non-profit organization, A Better Balance, explore these and many more surprising details in their new guide for expecting and new parents—Babygate: What You Really Need to Know About Pregnancy and Parenting in the American Workplace.
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