Working Mother Rights: What moms need to know

Today’s working mothers spend more time at work and in child care than their mothers did in the ‘60s. According to Pew Research Center (PRC), working moms spend about 25 hours a week at their job in 2016, compared with nine hours in 1965. They also spend 14 hours a week on child care, compared with 10 hours a week 56 years ago. Here, we look at your basic rights as a working mother.

An alarming rate of women are leaving the workforce than men. Just in September, 865,000 women left the U.S. labor force, compared to the 216,000 men – a drop that’s four times higher. A stream of columns on the Internet suggests how working mothers can work from home, maintain better work/life balance, and handle stress. Yet when we looked for basic rights as a working mother, we learned how many of us have taken it for granted. Yet when we search for basic rights as a working mother, we learned that there is a dearth of information on workplace fairness laws.

Which is why we’ve created this mini-guide to workplace rights for working mothers.

Maternity leave

Under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) that most women turn to for information on the basic rights of working mothers, you are entitled to up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave for birth, delivery and postpartum recovery as well as birth-related medical complications before you must return to work. Once you’ve come back to work, your employer must follow certain rules and guidelines to ensure you are fairly treated in the workplace.

The FMLA applies to all public agencies, all public and private elementary and secondary schools, and companies with 50 or more employees. Your employer must provide up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave each year for any of the following reasons:

• For the birth and care of the newborn child of an employee;
• For placement with the employee of a child for adoption or foster care;
• To care for an immediate family member (i.e., spouse, child, or parent) with a serious health condition; or
• To take medical leave when the employee is unable to work because of a serious health condition.

It is important to note that the FMLA leave granted is not paid leave. While it’s generally the norm in most states across the country, there has been a sea of change in recent times. Many companies are now voluntarily offering up to 52 weeks of paid paternity and maternity leave.

Return to work

You’ve safely delivered a little munchkin, finished your maternity leave and now you’re planning to return to work. These are your basic rights of pregnancy leave under the FMLA:

1. The right to return to the same or equivalent job
2. The right to not be discriminated against based on the fact that maternity leave was taken or that you were pregnant.
3. The right to return to an altered schedule of intermittent or part-time work.

According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), any woman returning from maternity leave must be treated the same as other workers allowed leave for a temporary disability.

Moreover, a to-be-mom must be allowed to work as long as she can perform her job functions before she takes maternity leave. In a sense, an employer may not force a worker to leave work because she is pregnant nor can it force her to take reduced pay, discriminate against her due to the pregnancy or opportunity to take maternity leave.

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