PA House Labor and Industry — 2026-09-29

this bill forward. Thank you. The question is, will the committee report the bill? Are there any comments or questions? I now turn it to my minority chair.

Sure. I'll defer to Representative Orsi.

You want to answer or we can?

Yes. Thank you.

yeah thank you I if we can explore that maybe on on final passage I I believe you that it's the intent I would hate to rope in people who aren't suffering from this who stand up suddenly and are dizzy and they don't have menopause or perimenopause and then we're forcing accommodations

As my colleague said, it is very broad, the bill, the verbiage of the bill itself. What I want to ask and maybe Mr. Chairman, this is directed towards you. This bill was introduced in January of last year, January 12th, 2026. We've been sitting on it since January 12th, 2026. Very pleased with the attendance, the in-person attendance we have here today. I still have not gotten used to present by designation. I'm not sure what that means, but we have in-person attendance here, which is awesome. even if this goes out of committee today, the timing of this leaves very, we all know, the chances of this getting to the governor and becoming law is slim to none. Maybe if this was introduced in April, or maybe if we put it in front of the committee in January, February, this would actually get to the governor and become law. I would just like to ask the question, why have we waited? If this is so very important, and I'm not saying it is or it isn't, but if this is so very important, why are we doing this today? And why weren't we doing it in February of last year?

Thank you. Berger? Before my comments, my answer would be likely because they're bad bills. That's probably why they're not passing them. Or bad members. Probably bad bills. So my concern with this is I'm not going to talk about my wife, although she gave me permission to do so. I'm not going to do that. I understand that this is difficult. I get it. This is difficult for women 100 agree do not need to be convinced of that part my concern is that oftentimes what i have seen is that when we as a legislative body try to solve one problem we tend to cause other related problems and i believe and i've said this i believe in this committee in the past that the role in its purest form the role of a conservative in government is to ask what are the unintended consequences here I see that we're trying to fix a problem but if we fix it this way is there something that could go wrong is there is there something bad that could happen if we pass this bill the way that it is and so what I read bills I have that in mind what are the unintended consequences it's clear what the intended consequences are it's like you know let's not let's not cost women their jobs because of something that they can't control. Understood. Absolutely. Agree. But the way that the bill is written, number one, it does kind of set up a guilty until proven innocent situation for employers where they have to go through the effort of showing that an accommodation is actually too much for them to afford, which can be a hassle, a real hassle. Now, speaking as someone who's signed the front sign of a paycheck, I have in the past evaluated employees based on how problematic they are to hire. Not because I don't like them, not because they're not talented, not because they're not gifted, but because when I hire them, I hire with them problems. I think that this bill is going to make women more costly to hire Because you going to look and we can put whatever guide rails we want into legislation saying well you not allowed to do that But I telling you it going to happen This is the unintended consequence of this bill Employers will look at two employees. One, let's say a mid-40s woman. The other, say, a mid-40s man. And they're not allowed to discriminate, and they understand that. But with this kind of legislation hanging over their head, they're going to find a reason not to hire the woman. They just will. I would. I would. Especially if I've gone through the process of trying to prove that the requirements or the accommodations are too cumbersome or too heavy for my business to deal with and lost a couple of times, I would think twice. Not because I don't care for or value what this person might do. It's that there's this unexpected cost that comes with hiring this employee. I think in this bill the unintended consequence is that we're going to make women more costly to hire, so I can't be a yes.

I was going to wave off. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, because Scott addressed what I was thinking about. The length of menopause varies.

Just stop. The length of menopause can vary from woman to woman. And so when we talk about pregnancy, we know that's a nine month and you know you have a young enough employee that is going to be in the workforce a while. We're seeing more women go back to work because they can't live on perhaps their pension or their social security. And they offer so much value to small business. I see a lot of bakeries popping up, child care, things like that where the grandmas, you know, their families have moved. And they need to get back in the workforce not only for income but for mental stability to be social. So, you know, when you put this in here, if a woman goes through menopause for five years, I had that concern that Scott brought up that they, you know, if an employer is looking, and they might hire someone younger, or they might not cater to this age of a woman. So that has concerns for me. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So for some of the reasons we've already heard by the members who have testified before me or asked questions, I have concerns with this bill as well. As it is written, it could place a real strain on small employers in particular, offering little or no flexibility, no way to verify health conditions, hardship standard that probably presumes against them. With that, the bill has been brought up very late and has apparently not attracted any attention for a hearing of any sort to iron out some of the difficulties. There's a lot of negative issues for the bill and for that reason I'm sorry but I cannot support it.

I want to first start by saying it's really interesting. We've been in this building for two days this week and the amount of mansplaining eagles is just absolutely insane to me. To hear men talk about the complexities of a woman's body is interesting, especially when legislation is proposed saying, listen, we're just trying, this piece of legislation is trying to explore the option to identify if these are concerns, regardless of the woman's age or what her body may be going through, we can address it. It's addressing medical concerns. And also, this is why we need to continue to provide funding for medical research because we don't know. I mean, even doctors can tell you the body changes all the time. We're learning things all the time. And so to really try to reduce how we as women believe we should be covered and protected in making sure that we are doing what we need to do regardless of the areas in which we serve and how we live. How dare you all as men tell us what we need to pay attention to in our body? That's insane. And I will also add that because we are legislators and we are supposed to serve everybody in the public and protect everybody in the Commonwealth, wealth, that's what the goal needs to be at all times. And sitting next to your colleagues, regardless of the side of the aisle you're on, understand you are not the superior gender in this body. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You know, we are in session this week, next week, and another week. in late October, and to hear that, well, we can't pass any bills because it may not get, what are we doing here? We're elected to legislate. I just can't believe, regardless of the bill or when it was introduced, we're here to govern for the good people of Pennsylvania. and I will vote on any matter that's brought in front of this committee or any other committee that I serve on or the floor of the House gladly and I'm not going to look for a lame excuse that maybe the bill doesn't get across the finish line. Well then guess what happens? We are educated. When we have debate and we hear from the other side, oh, we should have had a hearing on this. okay, well guess what? This is a hearing. We are learning. We are hearing about the plight of women and I've learned something by this bill and I thank the maker of the bill for enlightening me. And then to say that as an employer, I have hired probably over 2,000 people and interviewed in my lifetime. I've been in management for over 40 years to say, well, I'm going to not hire that particular class of person because maybe they come with problems. There's laws against that, and it's called reasonable accommodations. But we look for excuses all the time not to legislate in this building. I, for one, am going to be a yes, and I'm proud to be a yes and stand with our friends. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wanted to address the concern that was brought up earlier about the broadness of the language, this bill is actually very specific to conditions related to pregnancy, childbirth, and menopause, or related medical conditions And so the idea that somebody who is not experiencing pregnancy childbirth or menopause would somehow be entitled to a reasonable accommodation under this law that not how it reads That's not how the courts would interpret it. And so it is not broad language. It's actually very specific language about pregnancy, childbirth, and menopause. so I don't think that we need to be concerned that this is overly broad language that somebody would be able to use but also you have to in order to get a reasonable accommodation you have to have a medical diagnosis you have to go through that process I mean we have seen it here I had a staff member who needed a reasonable accommodation when she was pregnant because she was having issues with anxiety. And so we had to get, we had to work through the process where she had to get a, you know, recommendation from her medical provider about what that accommodation should be and what it is that we, you know, needed to do in order to address that issue. And then we did it. But there is a whole process around this. This is not just something where you roll into to work one day and you say, I need all of these things and you can't ask questions about it and I don't need to provide any, you know, paperwork that that this is what is the reasonable accommodation. That's not how the law works. That's not how it works. So, and it also, it has to be reasonable. These are all things that get worked through the process. It's not an immediate thing. My sister when she was pregnant with my younger nephew, she was working as a nurse at a nursing home and her pelvis started separating, which I don't know if you guys can understand the magnitude of pain that somebody is in when their pelvis starts separating. But she went to work every day and her reasonable accommodation was that she needed to be able to use, you know, basically the scooters that they had available for the residents in that facility. That was it. That was the accommodation that she had. She showed up to work every single day. She did her job, but she needed assistance with being able to move from place to place around this facility. That's the kind of accommodation we're talking about. This is not an accommodation that says you don't have to work, you don't have to show up to work, you don't have to meet your deadlines or get your stuff done. This is accommodations to allow somebody to actually continue to do the job for which they have been hired. and and as anybody who has hired somebody knows it is far more expensive to have to find a new employee than to invest in the employees that you have if they are doing a good job and making sure that they are able to continue doing the job that they have been hired to do. This helps with employee retention. This helps with addressing turnover. So the idea that that this would actually be more expensive, that this would make women more expensive to hire, it doesn't actually compute with the reality of things. That if you have employees that are invested in working for your business and you are investing in them to make sure that they are able to do that, they are going to continue to work for your business and they're going to continue to produce. So this is a reasonable, very narrowly tailored act that would allow women to have their medical needs recognized and respected. Because it wasn't until women served in Congress at a larger level that we even started doing medical research with female test subjects. We don't, we are so far behind when it comes to medical research on women's bodies and how they, how that is impacted. This is the kind of stuff that we should have known about long, long ago to actually invest in, to actually accommodate. And we are learning, but we are so far behind the ball on this because we believed that women and men's bodies were exactly the same and whatever men needed was that was all that they needed as compared to women. That women were fine as long as they got what men had. Women's bodies are different. They are in how they age. So if you have a medical condition, you should get a reasonable accommodation. That's how this should work. That is what is expected. And, you know, we didn't know that women manifested heart attacks differently until we started actually researching it. And so we have to know that women's and men's bodies operate differently in these kinds of ways. And so this is a reasonable request. I think this is a completely narrowly tailored bill. and I would ask you guys to support it because this is how we support women to be able to continue in the workforce.

Thank you. I want to thank the maker of the bill for introducing this bill. And some of the questions that have been raised is like, why are we working on this now and what took so long? First, this is the way the legislative process works. Bills get introduced. We bring them to committee. We created a package. I'm sure stakeholders were consulted, and now we're at a point where we're having a voting meeting. Good ideas were presented for potential amendments. We're going to move this through the floor. We all know we may have to start over again. That's how this job works. in 2024 i had a bill that we passed that got sent to the governor's desk on the last day of voting it was one of the last votes we took thank god i didn't adopt the mentality that we don't work until the finish line but i am a woman which means i'm a good worker and it is why investing in women is so important to me and to many of my colleagues we have worked to move legislation as women have gotten elected that have addressed women in the workforce because we get it we understand what it's like to not be able to have paid family leave or to have to take care of family members because there's no one else at home to do so. Women have left the workforce in droves since COVID and they're not going back. That's because the workforce is hostile to women and it's our job as women in this building to fix that. One of my favorite stories as a legislator, because this body has changed so much, is when I first got elected, I had to request the chief clerk put pads and tampons in the ladies room on the house floor. That was in the year of 2019 He said it because no one ever asked him before That is because prior to that more older women who were experiencing menopause were here Well the workplace has changed and it our job to adapt I couldn think of a better way to address that than thinking about as women who are now staying in the workforce if they're able to, longer. My mom is a disabled worker, and because of the federal government putting work requirements, she has to get a part-time job. She just got one. She's one of those older women that's having a hard time because those laws that you described about being broken if we pass this, that's happening now. People look over older women because they decide they're going to hire someone younger or they're going to hire someone, a man. So it's already happening, and it's our job to make sure it stops. So thank you, Chair Cephas, for all the work you do on behalf of women in the Commonwealth. I urge everyone to vote yes because there's really no other way to go home and explain to the women in your district

Thank you chairman First of all, I'd like to start my comments to by I apologize to our male colleagues for the degrading comments that were made to them. It is not mansplaining. They are duly elected just like all of the female legislators here. I want to thank them for the work that they put in to express their concerns. Thank you gentlemen on both sides of the aisle for working so diligently and actually reading the bills and asking questions. Second of all, I am overjoyed, overjoyed to hear the conversations that are happening here in this committee meeting today. We have spoken about women. We have spoken about childbirth, menopause, pregnancy. And I would just like to know, is it clear in the legislation, as a woman, as a biological woman, I would like to know if it's clear in this legislation the accommodations will be made for biological women as opposed to other types of women, I guess. Is it clear that biological women would be given the accommodations because the other side of the aisle has a problem actually defining what a woman is. Is there a definition of what a woman is in this legislation?

Again, is there an actual definition of what a woman is in the legislation? Because it's very unclear here in Harrisburg as to what a woman is on one side of the aisle. We know, I know as a biological woman what a woman is. Is it clear in the legislation that a biological woman experiencing these issues would be provided accommodations?

What definition I'm looking for is the definition of a woman. Are we talking about the definition of a woman or are we talking about the medical procedures that are in this bill?

Is there a definition of what a woman is?

Again, read the bill.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There is no definition.

With that man said, I will speak. And clearly, in this committee, it seems like the only reasonable workplace accommodation is to be a man. Because nothing else seems acceptable in this committee. and it is on brand and to my Philadelphia representative who said this is insanity, it's not that far from what this 250 year experience been in this country because if I'm not mistaken from the previous speaker she just got those rights maybe 60, 70 years ago to even speak in this committee but that might be forgotten because she's thanking them same individuals who kept her in the kitchen for a very long time and not in the workplace. So let's make it real clear that we are now in 2026. We do not accept the premise that just because you are born needing some of these procedures that's in this bill, that you do not get the right to actually be employed in this Commonwealth. The real question you got to ask yourself, why is so many women going back into the workforce? Why do so many women leave the workforce? Probably because of the wages of which we are paying individuals that are forced families to now go back into the workforce. Maybe it's because a lot of those men in those areas around this state and around this country just can't find work for a lot of reasons, mainly because of the wage issue we have in this country, mainly around the education issues we have in this country, mainly around the addiction that we have in these countries, around this country. So let's not pretend that we're trying to be cute in this committee around what are some of the unintended consequences, because as my members laid out throughout this entire debate that we had this morning, you all have a job to do in this building is to legislate. We all know this is the first step to any bill is going to the committee. You have the opportunity to look at bills, assess bills, and come up with other ideas if you deem that this particular legislation doesn't go far enough or doesn't cover the areas that will be a concern. As someone who's been in the minority for a very long time in this building, you all have a lot of time on your hands. I don't understand what you're doing if you didn't come up with any amendments to these problems that you have. But it sounds like you just want to have rhetoric to say in this building because you have nothing else to run on because you're not doing any work. So as the Democrats continue to do the work that you all have failed to do when you had the chance, now you're going to watch what it looks like to work until the last day. And that's what we tend to do.