US agency tasked with border security to pay $45 million over pregnancy discrimination, lawyers say

The agency responsible for securing the country's land and air border crossings is settling a case that alleged the agency discriminated against pregnant employees, lawyers for the employees said.

In a news release, lawyers for Customs and Border Protection employees said Tuesday they had reached a $45 million settlement in the class action that includes nearly 1,100 women. The lawyers said the settlement also includes an agreement by the agency to enact reforms to address the discriminatory practices.

The case was filed in 2016 with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, alleging that there was a widespread practice by CBP to place officers and agriculture specialists on light duty when they became pregnant. The agency did not give them the opportunity to stay in their position with or without accommodations, according to the complaint.

This meant the women lost out on opportunities for overtime, Sunday or evening pay and for advancement, the complaint said. Anyone put on light duty assignments also had to give up their firearm and might have to requalify before they could get it back.

“Announcing my pregnancy to my colleagues and supervisor should have been a happy occasion — but it quickly became clear that such news was not welcome. The assumption was that I could no longer effectively do my job, just because I was pregnant,” said Roberta Gabaldon, lead plaintiff in the case, in the news release.

The agency had argued that it was not standard policy to put pregnant women on light duty assignments and suggested that any misunderstanding of the agency's light duty policy was limited to a handful of offices as opposed to being an agency-wide policy, according to a judge's ruling last year certifying the case as a class action.

In a statement Wednesday, CBP said it could not comment on cases under litigation. The agency praised its nearly 7,000 women law enforcement officers and said its parental leave policy adheres to federal law and managers are being trained on compliance.

Gary Gilbert, President of Gilbert Employment Law, and Joseph Sellers, a partner at Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, who represent the employees said there will now be a presumption that pregnant employees can do their jobs, instead of being sidelined to light duty.

The agency will have to make reasonable accommodations for them such as making sure there are uniforms available for pregnant women, the lawyers said. There will also be trainings on how the light duty policy should be implemented and a three-year period of enforcement during which the lawyers can go back to the EEOC if they hear from clients that problems are persisting.

Gilbert said the settlement doesn't just benefit the women who are in the class action but also women who won't face the same problems in the future when they get pregnant.

The settlement agreement still has to be finalized by a judge. The women involved in the case will get a copy of the settlement agreement and can raise objections, although the lawyers said they'd already been in touch with many of the women and were optimistic it would be accepted. A trial had been slated to begin in September.