COLUMBUS — Eight months into her last pregnancy, Cecilia Beasley started having signs of pre-term labor during long shifts on her feet as a cashier.

When she attempted to take pregnancy leave, she discovered she hadn’t yet worked the minimum number of hours required to qualify for protected time off. Worrying about losing her job added more stress to an already complicated pregnancy, and Beasley quit.
“It was awful to be so tired and still sick and then know I didn’t have a paycheck coming,” said Beasley, 40.

Such concerns have led the Ohio Civil Rights Commission to propose changes that would strengthen the state’s 30-year-old pregnancy discrimination law by guaranteeing all working mothers at least 12 weeks of post-childbirth leave without fear of losing their jobs. Small businesses, however, panned the proposal at a recent hearing, viewing it as an attack on employers with fewer economic resources.

The proposal marks a national trend among states to strengthen the benefits guaranteed by the federal Family and Medical Leave Act, said Deven McGraw of the National Partnership for Women and Families.

The federal law mandates companies with at least 50 employees to allow new mothers who have worked at least 1,250 hours in the preceding 12 months to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave. The proposed state law would require employers with at least four workers to offer the same 12 weeks of unpaid leave regardless of how long a woman has worked for a company.
Ohio would join at least 18 states that have maternity leave laws that are more generous than the federal act. California and Hawaii require employers to offer paid maternity leave and other states, such as Iowa, Kansas and Montana, offer time off to new employees or employees of small companies, according to the National Partnership for Women and Families.

The FMLA and the existing state law, which requires companies to give women a “reasonable period of time” off work to care for their newborn, established a good basis for the rights of pregnant employees, but the changes would reflect that pregnancies cannot always be planned around what is most convenient for an employer, said Toni Delgado, spokeswoman for the Ohio Civil Rights Commission.

“No woman should have to fear for her job, especially when she’s facing a drastic financial burden of having a child,” she said.

But small businesses — especially those staffed by primarily female employees, such as nursing homes or day care centers — would be disproportionately hurt by the new law, said Tony Fiore, director of labor and human resources policy for the Ohio Chamber of Commerce.

“Smaller employers are just not as equipped to absorb the cost that it takes for a person to leave for 12 weeks,” he said. “The last thing we need to do is reduce flexibility and increase costs during the hard economic downturn that Ohio is in.”

Some small businesses already voluntarily provide benefits to their employees, said Ty Pine, the legislative director for the Ohio branch of the National Federation of Independent Businesses. He said employers may be forced to make cuts in other areas, such as paid vacation or paid sick leave, if the law is enacted.

Before Ohio’s changes can take effect, they must be approved by the Joint Committee on Agency Rule Review, a legislative panel that studies any conflicts with existing law. Pending approval of the committee, the new law could take effect in October or November.

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