Massachusetts Pregnant Workers Fairness Act: Accommodations and Rights

The Massachusetts Pregnant Workers Fairness Act gives you an explicit right to reasonable workplace accommodations if you are pregnant, recovering from childbirth, or dealing with a related condition, including lactation. The law took effect on April 1, 2018 and amended Chapter 151B of the Massachusetts General Laws to add pregnancy and related conditions as protected categories.¹ Your employer must work with you to find an accommodation that lets you keep doing your job, cannot push you onto leave when a simpler fix would do, and cannot punish you for asking.

Who Is Protected

The Act reaches employers covered by Chapter 151B, which applies broadly across the state.² Protections cover current employees, job applicants, and anyone affected by pregnancy or a related condition, including the need to express breast milk for a nursing child.³ That lactation coverage is worth flagging: the state Act protects nursing workers without the one-year cutoff federal law imposes.

An employer also cannot refuse to hire you because you are pregnant, as long as you can perform the essential functions of the job with a reasonable accommodation.³

Accommodations You Can Request

The statute lists specific accommodations that are presumed reasonable. Your employer generally cannot claim these are too burdensome without strong evidence:³

More frequent or longer paid or unpaid breaks
Time off to attend to a pregnancy complication or recover from childbirth
Modified or new equipment, or seating adjustments
Temporary transfer to a less physically demanding or hazardous position
Job restructuring, including light duty assignments
A private, non-bathroom space for expressing breast milk
Assistance with manual labor such as lifting or carrying
A modified work schedule for medical appointments or physical limitations

The list is a floor, not a ceiling. Other accommodations may qualify depending on your situation. An employer can only refuse an accommodation it can prove would cause undue hardship, meaning genuinely significant difficulty or expense, not simple inconvenience.³

How to Ask, and the No-Forced-Leave Rule

When you request an accommodation, your employer must engage in a good-faith interactive process with you to work out what will function in your role. It is a conversation, not a decision the employer hands down.²

Two rules limit what your employer can do. Your employer cannot force an accommodation on you that you did not request and do not need to perform your essential job functions. And your employer cannot require you to take leave if another reasonable accommodation would let you keep working.³ That second rule matters. Employers sometimes default to sending a pregnant worker home because it is simpler for management; the Act specifically forbids that shortcut when a workable alternative exists.

Your employer is also required to give you written notice of your rights under the Act, both to existing employees and to new hires at the start of employment.³

Retaliation and Reinstatement

Your employer cannot punish you for requesting or using an accommodation. Adverse action includes demotion, reduced hours, unfavorable reassignment, or any other change to the terms and conditions of your employment.²

Once you no longer need the accommodation, your employer must reinstate you to your original position or an equivalent role with the same pay, seniority, and benefits.² An employer who quietly moves you into a lesser role after your leave, even while framing it as a business decision, is violating this provision.

Filing a Complaint

If your employer breaks the Act, you have two enforcement routes.

The first is a complaint with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination, which enforces Chapter 151B. You must file within 300 days of the discriminatory act.⁴ MCAD investigates and can hold hearings to determine whether discrimination occurred and what corrective action is appropriate.

The second is a civil lawsuit in Superior Court. You can file 90 days after your MCAD complaint, or sooner with written permission from a commissioner. The overall deadline to sue is three years from the discriminatory act. A successful claim can produce actual damages, punitive damages for especially egregious conduct, and mandatory attorney’s fees and costs unless special circumstances make the award unjust.⁵ Mandatory fee-shifting is significant. It means a worker with a strong case can attract legal representation even when the underlying damages are modest.

You can also file with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission if the conduct violates federal pregnancy discrimination law. The federal deadline is also 300 days.

How the State Act Compares to Federal Law

The federal Pregnant Workers Fairness Act took effect on June 27, 2023, and requires employers with 15 or more employees to provide reasonable accommodations for pregnancy, childbirth, and related conditions unless doing so creates undue hardship. The federal statute also bars forced leave when an accommodation is available and prohibits retaliation.⁶ It does not displace state laws with stronger rights, so Massachusetts workers get whichever law is more protective in a given situation.⁷

Title VII’s Pregnancy Discrimination Act prohibits treating employees less favorably because of pregnancy but does not itself require accommodations. The Americans with Disabilities Act requires accommodations only for pregnancy-related conditions that rise to the level of a disability, such as gestational diabetes or preeclampsia.⁸ The Massachusetts Act fills the gap by requiring accommodations for pregnancy itself, whether or not any condition qualifies as a disability.

For lactation, the federal PUMP for Nursing Mothers Act requires reasonable break time and a private, non-bathroom space for up to one year after birth.⁹ The Massachusetts Act includes the same space requirement without the one-year limit.³

One practical point on damages. Federal discrimination claims carry combined compensatory and punitive damage caps ranging from $50,000 to $300,000 depending on employer size.¹⁰ Chapter 151B claims are not subject to those caps and authorize actual and punitive damages without a fixed ceiling, plus the mandatory attorney’s fees mentioned above.⁵ For workers at smaller companies, the state claim is often the stronger route.

Paid Leave Is a Separate Program

The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act keeps you working with accommodations. It does not pay you when you need to stop working. That is the job of Massachusetts Paid Family and Medical Leave, which is funded through payroll contributions and covers most workers in the state automatically.

PFML provides up to 20 weeks of paid medical leave per benefit year if a serious health condition, including pregnancy complications and childbirth recovery, keeps you from your job for more than three consecutive days, plus up to 12 weeks of paid family leave to bond with a new child during the first 12 months. The combined maximum is 26 weeks per benefit year.¹¹ In 2026, the maximum weekly benefit is $1,230.39, with your actual amount tied to your earnings.¹² Many pregnant workers use accommodations under the PWFA earlier in pregnancy and PFML around delivery and bonding.

1
Mass.gov. MCAD Guidance on the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act
2
Mass.gov. Massachusetts General Laws c151B Section 4
3
General Court of Massachusetts. Massachusetts Acts of 2017 Chapter 54 – An Act Establishing the Massachusetts Pregnant Workers Fairness Act
4
Legal Information Institute. 804 CMR 1.04 – Complaint Filing, Amendment and Withdrawal
5
General Court of Massachusetts. Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 151B Section 9
6
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Pregnant Workers Fairness Act
7
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. What You Should Know About the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act
8
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Pregnancy Discrimination and Pregnancy-Related Disability Discrimination
9
U.S. Department of Labor. FLSA Protections to Pump at Work
10
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Remedies For Employment Discrimination
11
Mass.gov. Types of Paid Family and Medical Leave
12
Mass.gov. Paid Family and Medical Leave (PFML) Overview and Benefits