Who gets to tell you if you're healthy enough to work?
A pregnant woman reached out to FOX 47 News and said her employer forced her to go on unpaid medical leave.
Becky Carter is an assistant manager at Speedway and was planning to work right up until she gave birth. But she says the company ordered her to go home with more than 20 weeks left in her pregnancy.
"I've lost or in the process of losing everything," said Becky Carter, lead assistant manager at Speedway.
Carter has held her position at various Speedway stations for more than a year.
She planned to keep working through her pregnancy under doctors orders not to lift more than 15 pounds.
Carter claims her manager told her Speedway considered her too much of a risk to let her keep working.
"He was pretty straightforward with it. 'You are required to lift up to 50 pounds and you're not able to do that, Speedway doesn't want to make you a liability,'" Carter said.
Speedway will not comment on specific employee situations but said it complies with all federal, state and local employment laws.
Carter told FOX 47 News the company said she had to be able to lift up to 50 pounds to stay on the job.
"I told it to my district and told my store managers it's not that big of a deal. I can count on one hand how many things in the store weigh 50 pounds and that gets delegated down anyways," said Carter.
She said she banked up 300 hours of sick pay, three vacation days and one floating holiday.
That comes to about six weeks, which gets her to week 20 of her pregnancy -- barely half of a full-term pregnancy. and she can't come back to work until the baby is born.
"How are my bills gonna get paid? How's my rent going to get paid? How am I going to feed my kids?" Carter said.
Under the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, an employer must provide reasonable accommodations for a pregnant employee, similar to accommodations for workers who are temporarily disabled for other reasons.
Federal law requires companies to give their employees up to 12 unpaid weeks off a year under the Family Medical Leave Act.
Workers who take leave must be allowed to come back to the same, or an equivalent job.
For more information, visit this website: Pregnancy Laws
