ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Melissa Meyer, a Whitehall Township mother of two, worked through both of her pregnancies, but at two separate companies.
“As an expecting mother at the height of a global [coronavirus] pandemic, and being new to the organization, I found comfort with this place because I was able to have a flexible work schedule, whether it be hybrid or in the office of my choosing,” Meyer said, referring to working at Commonwealth Federal Credit Union in Allentown leading up to the birth of her second child.
- U.S. Sen. Bob Casey stopped in the Lehigh Valley to talk about the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act
- Casey used First Commonwealth Federal Credit Union as an example of how the protocols help people
- The law went into effect June 27
On Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Bob Casey stopped at the credit union and used the workplace as a shining example to demonstrate what the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act entails.
The act, which took more than a decade to pass, finally was approved in December 2022 and went into effect June 27.
"We want to make sure that any worker that's pregnant has the opportunity to ask for, to seek, and to be granted a reasonable accommodations, so they can get through their pregnancy and not have to leave the job too early,”U.S. Sen. Bob Casey
"We want to make sure that any worker that's pregnant has the opportunity to ask for, to seek, and to be granted a reasonable accommodations, so they can get through their pregnancy and not have to leave the job too early,” Casey said.
'Make sense for them and their healthy pregnancy'
Meyer, a senior IT analyst, worked at another institution prior to coming to the financial organization and said the experience as a pregnant person in the workplace was different each time.
“I felt more comfortable here knowing that I could come and pump comfortably and not go to an attic at my previous employer,” she said.
"That can be really awkward at a company that may support you taking the time to do it, but there's no private space for you to do it,” said Donna Lostocco, chief executive officer of First Commonwealth Federal Credit Union.
"We have lactation rooms. They are private rooms with a lock on the door and refrigerators in them for women to go and pump any time in the day they need to.”
Lostocco said about 60% of her company's employees are female. That’s one of the reasons they set certain practices in place that cater to child-bearing women, even before those practices became the law.
Casey was joined by the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce President Tony Iannelli. The chamber held the event with the credit union.
“This piece of legislation is so needed and can help accommodate so many families."Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce President Tony Iannelli
“This piece of legislation is so needed and can help accommodate so many families,” Iannelli said.
Casey said, "There are lots of examples with something as simple as if you're pregnant, as everybody knows, sometimes being on your feet longer than the average person can be difficult.
"So, having a stool to sit on, having a water bottle in the workplace, you may not normally have bathroom breaks. Just simple accommodations like that, that too often were denied to women because there was kind of a gap in the law."
He said about 75% of women in the workplace will have a pregnancy, so the new regulations will make working through pregnancy a little less challenging for millions of women.
“They can stay, they can stay on the job longer as long as they make sense for them and for their healthy pregnancy," Casey said.
The Americans with Disabilities Act also provided protections for pregnant women, but the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act fills some of the gaps, officials said.
