Senate Fails to Act on Pregnant Workers Fairness Act and Minimum Wage Bill

By Allison Grogan Buckley

Two high-profile bills pending in the Senate have failed to become law at the end of Kentucky’s 2015 regular legislative session.

In March, Kentucky’s House unanimously passed the Kentucky Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (House Bill 218), which would have required employers subject to the Kentucky Civil Rights Act to provide reasonable accommodations for “pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions.” As drafted, the Act would have also amended the definition of “a related medical condition” to include “lactation or the need to express breast milk for a nursing child.” The bill was received by the Senate on February 27 and sent to the Veterans, Military Affairs, & Public Protection committee on March 2, but the Senate failed to act further on the bill before the end of the 2015 regular session.

Also pending before the Senate was House Bill 2, which would have gradually raised the minimum wage in Kentucky from $7.25 to $10.10 per hour over the next two years. Like HB 218, the minimum wage bill was passed by the House and received in the Senate. The Bill was then referred to the Senate’s Appropriations & Revenue committee, but the Senate failed to act further prior to the end of the legislative session.

 

House Unanimously Passes the Kentucky Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, Bill Now Onto Senate

The House unanimously passed the Kentucky Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (HB 218), which would require employers subject to the Kentucky Civil Rights Act to provide reasonable accommodations for “pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions.” It would also amend the Civil Rights Act to make it unlawful for employers to “fail to accommodate an employee affected by pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical condition [and would] require employers to provide notice to all employees regarding discrimination for pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions.” In addition, a “related medical condition” would be amended to include “lactation or the need to express breast milk for a nursing child and has the same meaning as in the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, 42 U.S.C. sec. 2000e(k).” The bill is now headed to the Senate.

Accommodations for pregnant employees is a hot topic in employment news right now. This year, the U.S. Supreme Court will decide in Young v. UPS whether employers are required under the Federal Pregnancy Discrimination Act to provide accommodations for pregnancy–related symptoms. Young had requested light duty due to

NPR Reports that House Seeks Major Cut in OSHA’s Current Budget

By Edwin S. Hopson

On March 1, 2011, National Public Radio reported on its website that Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives are trying to cut about $99 million in federal spending in the current fiscal year from the budget for the U.S. Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA).  According to OSHA Administrator David Michaels, the proposed a 20% cut as applied to the remaining months of the fiscal year ending September 30, 2011, actually amounts to a 40% reduction in OSHA’s budget for the period covered.  Michael’s says this would have a devastating effect on his agency’s activities during the next 6-7 months.

House Republicans have claimed that OSHA’s recent stepped enforcement activities threaten jobs and focuses too much on “punishment [rather] than prevention.”  At a recent hearing on the issue, the chairman of the House Subcommittee on Workforce Protections, Michigan Republican Tim Walberg, questioned the agency’s priorities.

NPR quotes OSHA Administrator Michaels as countering with:  “[w]e know that OSHA doesn’t kill jobs. It stops jobs from killing workers. When employers embrace safety, they actually save money.”

Peg Seminario, the safety and health director of the AFL-CIO, is also quoted by NPR: “[w]e now have a much bigger workforce than we had 40 years ago when OSHA was started.  But they would propose to slash the agency, slash enforcement, slash standards-setting, leaving the agency essentially crippled and unable to do its job to protect workers.”

The U.S. Senate now has to take up the House-passed cuts and, along with the President, has to come to some agreement with the House to avoid a government shutdown.