When you know the law is on your side but no one in the building seems to be aware of it or care, a certain kind of fatigue sets in. That experience has become almost commonplace for pregnant employees in America’s enormous fulfillment and distribution centers. They already have swollen feet, dyspnea, and pressure in their abdomens when they start their shifts. They request a chair, an additional bathroom visit, or a moment to sip water. They are then told no, frequently enough that it has become the norm.
This equation was intended to be altered by the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which went into effect in June 2023 following over ten years of advocacy. It was intended to close a truly embarrassing legal loophole in federal law: under the previous 1978 Pregnancy Discrimination Act, a pregnant employee could only assert her right to accommodations if she could demonstrate that a non-pregnant coworker was being treated similarly. Courts frequently dismissed claims using this comparative standard. That requirement was completely removed by the PWFA. Covered employers, defined as those with fifteen or more workers, are now required to make reasonable accommodations unless doing so would result in an actual undue hardship. It appears to be progress on paper. The implementation has been more disorganized on warehouse floors.
The unsettling aspect of Jennifer Hatch’s case is that it is not unique. She experienced pregnancy-related asthma complications while working at an Amazon facility in Lancaster, New York, as well as stomach pain that got worse after standing for extended periods of time. Her physician filed documentation. Amazon claimed not to have received it. Weeks went by. She once sat in a chair, continuing to work and scan returns, until a manager instructed her to get up. She had left her shift by ambulance multiple times by February and March of 2025. Her hospital visits had caused her absences to exceed the allowed limit by ninety minutes, so when she arrived at work in late March, she found out she had been fired.
The structure of the workplace itself is what makes situations like this so difficult to resolve. Warehouses are powered by algorithmic tracking, productivity metrics, and stringent restrictions on what businesses refer to as “time off task.” Pregnancy was not taken into consideration when these systems were created, and some employers seem to have overlooked the fact that they now directly violate federal law. The EEOC has declared that enforcing the PWFA is a top priority and has officially concluded that Amazon violated the rights of pregnant workers nationwide. That is a noteworthy discovery, the kind that typically results in months or years of legal pressure rather than instantaneous floor change.
Beneath all of this, the demographic reality is also important. Workers in low-paying, physically demanding jobs like retail, manufacturing, healthcare support, and warehousing are most likely to be refused accommodations. Black and brown women are disproportionately represented in these roles. Therefore, the damage is not distributed equally when requests for accommodations are consistently turned down or delayed by bureaucracy. The stakes have been made clear by medical experts. Pregnancy alters a woman’s center of gravity, affects joint stability, and raises her risk of falling, according to obstetricians. One senior maternal-fetal medicine specialist stated that someone is in danger whenever medically necessary accommodations are denied.
The discrepancy between the law’s clarity and the confusion, or resistance, that occurs in practice is difficult to ignore. Four accommodations should almost always be deemed automatically reasonable, according to the EEOC’s final PWFA regulations, which were released in April 2024: access to water, extra restroom breaks, the freedom to sit or stand as needed, and meal breaks. These demands are not complicated. They serve as the foundation for a productive workday.
However, in a single year, 765 pregnant employees called A Better Balance, the legal advocacy group that assisted in passing the PWFA, to report that their employers had refused them precisely these benefits. In this way, the fight over pregnancy accommodation laws in American warehouses is more of a test of whether businesses will adhere to now clearly stated regulations than a legal argument. It’s still unclear if that test is being passed.
