"Throughout the American workplace, pregnancy discrimination remains widespread." This is the conclusion reached by the New York Times in an excellent article examining this disturbing and disappointing issue: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America's Biggest Companies.

Here are some specific conclusions:

• Many of the country’s largest and most prestigious companies still systematically sideline pregnant women.
   
• They pass them over for promotions and raises.
   
• They fire them when they complain.
   
• In physically demanding jobs — where an increasing number of women unload ships, patrol streets and hoist boxes — the discrimination can be blatant.
   
• Each child chops 4 percent off a woman’s hourly wages, according to a 2014 analysis by a sociologist at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

The article describes what many will find as examples that ring all too true or familiar.

There are remedies: both federal and Kentucky state law prohibit pregnancy discrimination and provide for legal claims when it occurs.

Lexington, Kentucky discrimination lawyer Robert Abell represents individuals and employees in employment discrimination cases throughout Kentucky and other states in both state and federal court; contact him at 859-254-7076.