On Tuesday, Frontier Airlines was slapped with complaints of sex discrimination from two flight attendants who claim the airline failed to “accommodate pregnant and breastfeeding employees.” The flight attendants, Jo Roby and Stacy Rewitzer, “have each worked for Frontier for over 10 years and say they were forced to take excessive unpaid leave due to a policy that forbids breastfeeding employees from pumping breast milk while on duty.” While on duty, their shifts average 10 hours or longer, “with back-to-back flights,” leaving little to no time to pump breast milk.
Airlines have been in the news a lot lately, and not for particularly great reasons. On Tuesday, Frontier Airlines was slapped with complaints of sex discrimination from two flight attendants who claim the airline failed to “accommodate pregnant and breastfeeding employees.” The flight attendants, Jo Roby and Stacy Rewitzer, “have each worked for Frontier for over 10 years and say they were forced to take excessive unpaid leave due to a policy that forbids breastfeeding employees from pumping breast milk while on duty.” While on duty, their shifts average 10 hours or longer, “with back-to-back flights,” leaving little to no time to pump breast milk.
The complaints were filed on Tuesday with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and “come exactly one year after four Frontier pilots filed similar charges,” claiming the “company would not allow them to pump breast milk on duty, much less provide the private pumping area that is mandated under Colorado’s Workplace Accommodations for Nursing Mothers Act.”
The most recent complaints were filed with the assistance of the ACLU and the “law firm Holwell Shuster & Goldberg LLP.” In addition to claiming the airline failed to accommodate pregnant and breastfeeding employees, the filings also charge a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which is a law that bans sex discrimination in employment, and states that “women affected by pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions shall be treated the same for all employment-related purposes,” according to NBC News.
When asked about her reasons to file the most recent complaint against the airline, Roby said:
“I am bringing these charges not just for me and my daughter, but also for future flight attendants and their families. No one should have to choose between being the mom she wants to be and pursuing the career she loves.”
So what exactly happened to prompt Roby and Rewitzer’s complaints? Well, both flight attendants have described “multiple attempts to communicate with superiors at work and request accommodations for pumping breast milk, as well as trying to rearrange their work schedules.” Additionally, in Roby’s EEPC filing, in particular, she claims she repeatedly told a senior employee relations manager that she intended to breastfeed her child for “up to two years,” and was told to “take a leave of absence in order to breastfeed.” The same manager allegedly told her that “she was not allowed to pump in airplane bathrooms, “for [my] safety and the safety of others.” However, according to Roby, “there was no other place for the flight attendant, while on flight duty, to pump besides the airline bathroom.”
In response to the complaints, Frontier issued a statement and told NBC News that the airline is in compliance with state and federal law. Their statement said:
“Our policies and practices comply with all federal and state laws as well as with the relevant provisions of the collective bargaining agreement between Frontier and its flight attendant group. We have made good-faith efforts to identity and provide rooms and other secure locations for use by breast-feeding flight attendants during their duty travel.”
However, Galen Sherwin, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU Women’s Rights Project believed the airline’s policies are “discriminatory at a structural level and need to be changed.” He said, “how is it that a job that is majority female still fails to take into account pregnancy and breastfeeding? It’s time for Frontier to start addressing the needs of pregnant and breastfeeding workers — both inside and outside the flight deck.”
Many agree with him, and agree that Roby and Rewitzer’s complaints are justified. After all, how can women ever truly be treated equally and fairly in the workplace if companies aren’t able to accommodate something as common as pregnancy and breastfeeding?
Sources:
Breast-Feeding Employees Charge Frontier Airlines With Sex Discrimination
NURSING MOTHER FLIGHT ATTENDANTS FORBIDDEN BY FRONTIER AIRLINES FROM PUMPING MILK
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