Denver - The U.S. bishops urged the passage of the “Pregnant Workers Fairness Act” as a means of building a just economy for women and families. This was said during their message for Labour Day.
“No woman should be forced to risk her or her child’s health, miscarriage, preterm birth, economic security or losing insurance benefits just because she requests a short-term, reasonable, pregnancy-related accommodation,” Archbishop Paul Coakley of Oklahoma City, chairman of the U.S. bishops’ domestic justice committee, wrote in his message for Labor Day.
“There is currently no federal law requiring employers to provide short-term, reasonable accommodations to pregnant women in the workplace and the PWFA would do so,” he said.
The archbishop noted that common requests for accommodation “ include being able to carry a bottle of water, a stool for jobs that involve long periods of standing, or lighter duty for jobs that entail heavy lifting.”
He said that “women in low-wage and physically demanding jobs … are regularly denied these simple accommodations and terminated or forced to take leave without pay.”
In addition to passing the PWFA, Coakley encouraged expansion of the Child Tax Credit as policies that “would have a profound impact on family stability, especially for families who are financially vulnerable,” recalling that the Church “looks at the well-being of society through the lens of the well-being of the family.”
“Congress should move forward with a CTC proposal that has no minimum income requirement, includes families with mixed immigration status, is available for the year before birth, and is offered to every child – regardless of the size of the family,” he wrote.
Coakley noted that this is the first Labor Day since Roe v. Wade was overturned, calling the Dobbs decision “an incredibly significant step towards healing the deep wounds of abortion and protecting all preborn human life.”
“But our aim as Catholics has always been, and remains, to build a society in which abortion is unthinkable. This unique moment necessitates a society and an economy that supports marriages, families, and women; it demands that all of us reach across political aisles and work diligently to reframe social policies in ways that are pro-woman, pro-family, pro-worker and, thus, authentically pro-life.”