PREGNANCY/RESTRICITIONS

kimpro

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 12-10-02 AT 10:14AM (CST)[/font][p]Help!!!! We just recently hired someone and she came to us last week and told us she just found out she was pregnant. With that she told us that her doctor put her on restricted duty.. An essential function of her job is lifting two women who are physically and mentally disabled.. What is our responsibility to this woman? What are our options? Thanks for the help.

Gillian

You should find out how much weight the lifting requirement is then match that against the restrictions. If the lifting requirement is higher than the restriction then the person can't do the job and can be replaced. Hopefully, the individual will understand your position. You could offer the person another position is you have one available or, if not, put her on a list for a future hire.

Balloonman

I will probably get hung by my toes but here goes.......
I had a similar situation in a union manufacturing plant I worked at in the early 90's. (Man that makes me sound old!) We had a policy of not accomodating non-work related restrictions. The reason for this if they aggravated the injury it became WC.
We then had an employee request an accomodation because she could not either lift, or be around some chemicals, and was told no. The female union steward hit the roof. Said we were discriminating against her because she was pregnant. I pointed out that actually I was treating her like everyone else. Pregnancy was not a disability or permanant condidtion, so like someone with a broken arm, we would not accomodate. She was hot, called everybody and their brother, but nobody could show me anything that said I was wrong. Funny thing is the employee had disability insurance and was not overly upset by this, just the union steward of course.
Facts were they could not perform the essential functions of the job, so they could not work. It did not make me very popular with the ladies in the plant!
My $0.02 worth.
DJ The Balloonman

Pork

Follow your company policy and medically disqualify the employee and terminate the relationship. But first get the physician's certification required under FMLA, get the employees request for personal and medical leave request form application from the ee, get the physician's determination of medical diswualification, then respond to the employee's request with a denial and terminate. Been there and did that this week to a vehicle accident victim with broken bones and physicians, diswualification for three months. Got the FMLA forms with request for personal leave of absence, got the physician's disqualification for medical reasons, and wrote the ee a nice letter denying the leave and oh by the way our company policy states if you are out for personal medical reasons and your do not otherwise qualify for FMLA or a personal leave of absemnce longer than 6 weeks then we have no choice but to cancel our employee/employer relationship based on medical disqualification under physician certifications. You may re-apply once your physician returns you to the world of work with no restricitions. We appreciate this short opportunity to be a part of your working world and we wish you well in the future. signed HR. Hope this helps you, Pork

Balloonman

you make that sound oh so nice Pork, nice touch.
DJ The Balloonman