This law is a lifeline for pregnant workers even as an abortion dispute complicates its enforcement

Victoria Cornejo Barrera thought the legal helpline for workers sounded too good to be true and wondered if it was a scam.

- Alexandra Olson, Claire Savage

A month earlier, Cornejo Barrera had been forced to take leave from her job as head custodian at a South Carolina high school after she turned in a doctor's note asking to be exempt from tasks like climbing ladders and lifting more than 20 pounds because she was pregnant.

She spent a month crying and blaming herself for thinking she could keep her job while pregnant. She used up all her accumulated paid time off because she couldn't afford to go without a paycheck. Then she got a notice from human resources saying she would have to start paying $600 a month to stay on health insurance while on unpaid leave.

"I was feeling so guilty. I was feeling like my pregnancy was the problem," Cornejo Barrera said.

Searching for help online, she came across the website run by the legal advocacy organization A Better Balance, explaining about a federal law called the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act that entitled her to the types of accommodations she had been seeking. It had gone into effect in June 2023, a month before she was pushed out of her job.

Was the law really on her side? Cornejo Barrera called the helpline.

A new law's complicated first year nearly 500 workers in similar circumstances have contacted A Better Balance's legal helpline in the year since the implementation of the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which strengthens the rights of workers to seek accommodations for pregnancy-related needs. The experiences of those workers tell a complicated story about the impact of a new law that is still unfamiliar to many employers, according to a report released Tuesday by A Better Balance--the organization that spearheaded a decade-long campaign for the law, which Congress finally passed in December 2022.