Legal Question in Employment Law in Florida

Re: employee laws

The Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA) prohibits discrimination based on pregnancy, birth, or related medical conditions in any aspect of employment as illegal sex based discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. The PDA is federal law. Employers with 15 or more employees and other regulated employers must treat workers with pregnancy-related disabilities in the same way they would treat other temporarily disabled employees.

This answer is provided for general information purposes only. Seek a legal consultation if you have questions regarding planned actions against a protected employee.

Re: employee laws

Employers have the right to take any action against any employee who does not have a contract with a fixed duration. So long as the action is not based on an illegal reason i.e. because the employee is pregnant, there is no recourse under any laws. Of course, it is always risky to take action against someone who may perceive that the reason was unlawful. This could result in a claim being filed with a Federal, State, or local agency who will investigate whether the motivation for the action was discriminatory. There are ways to minimize the risk of having this happen. Should you become the subject of such an investigation, it is better to contact counsel early in the process rather than have the matter escalate.

Re: employee laws

An employees pregnancy does not prevent an employer from cutting houurs for reasons unrelated to the pregnancy. It will, of course, raise suspicion. The pregnancy also creates its own set of issues for your employee and, just as a moral point, you may wish to consider sitting her down and seeing about addressing the performance issues first before just forcing the financial hit on her. That said, however, you can cut her hours if she is not performing as required -- but you can't do that simply because she is pregnant.