Labor Department delays sex discrimination rule

The Obama administration is delaying a rule that would require federal contractors and subcontractors to ensure their workplace is free from discrimination based on sex. 

The Labor Department announced Friday that it’s extending the public comment period for its proposed rule through April 14. Comments were originally due March 31.

{mosads}The agency said it wants to give the public time to comment on this week’s U.S. Supreme Court decision in Young v. United Parcel Service.

In a 6-3 ruling, the court gave Peggy Young a second chance to prove her employer, UPS, discriminated against her when they refused to accommodate her doctor’s order not to lift more than 20 pounds when she became pregnant. UPS requires its drivers to lift up to 70 pounds.

Supreme Court said because Young had not established that UPS’s policy discriminated against pregnant women relative to others in similar ability or inability, she had not shown a violation of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act’s same-treatment requirement.

That law added new language to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, specifying the prohibition of sex discrimination in the workplace also applied to discrimination because of or on the basis of pregnancy, childbirth or a related medical condition. 

Because the Labor Department’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs follows Title VII when enforcing the law against employment discrimination by federal contractors and subcontractors, the agency said it wanted to give the public time to comment on the ruling.