DENVER, Colo. — The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Colorado, and the law firm Holwell Shuster & Goldberg LLP today filed discrimination charges with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on behalf of four female Frontier Airlines pilots who claim that the company’s policies discriminate against women by failing to provide accommodations related to pregnancy and breast-feeding.

The pilots, who have collectively worked for Frontier for 35 years, assert that despite their dedication to their jobs, the airline’s failure to accommodate their pumping needs made it extremely difficult for them to continue breast-feeding their babies once they returned to work.

The pilots are Shannon Kiedrowski, who has worked for Frontier since 2002, Brandy Beck, who has worked there since 2003, and Erin Zielinski and Randi Freyer, who have worked there since 2013.

“We love our jobs as pilots for Frontier Airlines and we shouldn’t have to choose between our jobs and breast-feeding our children,” said Kiedrowski. “But because of the lack of accommodations for pregnancy and breast-feeding, that is exactly the position each of us has been put in. We’re bringing this complaint because no woman should have to go through what we went through.”

Frontier forces pregnant pilots to take eight to 10 weeks of unpaid leave before their due date, allows a maximum of 120 days of maternity leave (all of it unpaid), and fails to make any accommodations to enable pilots who are breast-feeding to pump breast milk when they return to work. Women who are away from their babies need to express breast milk using a breast pump on roughly the same schedule as the baby’s feeding schedule, or serious medical complications can result. But pilots’ schedules often involve long flights and trips that can last days at a time, so they need to have a designated place where they can pump both on the aircraft and at airports.

“Frontier’s policies are discriminatory at a structural level and need to be changed,” said Galen Sherwin, senior staff attorney with the ACLU Women’s Rights Project. “If Frontier wants to attract and retain the most qualified pilots, it’s going to have to recognize the needs of its pilots who have babies.”

The charges assert that Frontier’s policies violate state and federal laws against sex discrimination in employment because they treat pregnancy and breast-feeding less favorably than other medical conditions or disabilities and have a disproportionate effect on women. They also allege violations of the Colorado Workplace Accommodations for Nursing Mothers Act.

“Currently, only 6 percent of commercial pilots are women. Discriminatory policies such as these across the airline industry contribute to this extremely low number,” said Hannah Sholl, counsel at Holwell Shuster & Goldberg LLP. “We hope that Frontier takes the necessary steps to ensure that these discriminatory policies are ended once and for all.”

The women each assert that they sought information, support, and accommodations from Frontier, but were met with indifference or outright hostility.

• All of the women claim that they often had to delay pumping due to their flight schedules, and that they suffered from pain and discomfort as a result.
• Three of the women suffered from mastitis, an infection of the breast tissue, as a result of Frontier’s policies and practices that did not permit them to pump on a sufficiently regular schedule.
• One of the pilots, Kiedrowski, was disciplined after a co-pilot complained that she had used a breast pump on the aircraft.
• One of them, Zielinski, had to terminate breast-feeding early after her milk supply dried up. She also claims that her supervisors inadvertently sent her an email intended for Frontier management accusing her of “baiting” them after she asked for accommodations and that her work email was abruptly cut off immediately after she received the message.
• All of the women claim that they suffered from financial harm as a result of being forced to take an unpaid leave during the end of their pregnancies, without the option to seek a temporary job reassignment that would have allowed them to earn a paycheck.

“Each of us tried to work with Frontier to find a solution, but unfortunately our efforts went nowhere,” said Beck, a first officer at Frontier since 2003. “Because of Frontier’s failure to address the needs of pilots who are breast-feeding on a policy level, each of us has been left to figure out these problems on her own.”

The charges ask the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to require Frontier to take several steps to make it easier for pregnant pilots and pilots who are breast-feeding, including that Frontier provide women the option of taking a temporary alternative assignment that would permit them to continue working during pregnancy or breast-feeding; allow more than 120 days of unpaid  maternal leave to permit women to continue breast-feeding; designate places where a pilot who is breast-feeding can pump, including at airports Frontier uses; and allow pilots who are breast-feeding to pump on the aircraft when necessary.

Prior to filing these charges, the ACLU and Holwell Shuster & Goldberg LLP sent a letter to Frontier requesting that Frontier implement policy changes to adequately accommodate pregnant and breast-feeding pilots, but Frontier never responded.

Today’s complaint is at: https://www.aclu.org/cases/frontier-airlines-eeoc-complaint

For a blog by one of the pilots: https://www.aclu.org/blog/speak-freely/airline-pilots-should-not-have-choose-between-their-jobs-and-breastfeeding-their

DENVER - Statement of ACLU of Colorado Public Policy Director Denise Maes on HB 1328, a bill to protect Colorado children from solitary confinement, which was approved today by the Colorado House of Representatives, after passing the Senate unanimously last week.

“The American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado commends the Colorado legislature for taking action to protect children from inhumane and dangerous solitary confinement.  HB 1328 puts in place permanent guardrails and oversight measures to ensure that the Colorado Department of Youth Corrections never again resorts to using long-term solitary confinement to manage or punish children.
A 2014 investigation by the ACLU of Colorado, the Colorado Juvenile Defender Center, and Colorado Disability Law revealed that DYC had illegally placed children in solitary confinement for days, weeks, even more than a month as punishment when there was no emergency, as a form of “treatment.”
Following the investigation, DYC committed to ending its use of solitary confinement except in emergencies, and adopted a new policy to that effect. HB 1328 codifies the current policy limiting the use of solitary confinement and establishes procedures to be followed when a child is secluded for more than four hours.  The bill also includes recording requirements and the establishment of a working group to ensure implementation of the law and to prevent reversion to harmful seclusion practices.
The ACLU of Colorado would like to thank the sponsors of HB 1328, Senators Kent Lambert and Kevin Lundberg, Representative Beth McCann, and especially Representative Pete Lee, whose personal dedication and leadership was essential to navigating the bill to successful passage with wide bipartisan support in the final days of the session.”
RESOURCES:

Fact Sheet on HB 1328 – A Bill to Protect Colorado’s Children from Solitary Confinement

Visit the ACLU of Colorado Stop Solitary Campaign Page

DENVER – The City of Colorado Springs has agreed, as part of a $103,000 settlement with the ACLU of Colorado, to stop converting impoverished defendants’ fines into jail time, to stop sentencing defendants to jail for non-jailable offenses, and to compensate dozens of individuals whose court fines were illegally converted to jail time when they could not afford to pay.

“Until last fall, the Colorado Springs Municipal Court was regularly sentencing poor and homeless defendants to jail because they were too poor to pay fines imposed for minor ordinance violations,” said Mark Silverstein, ACLU of Colorado Legal Director.  “We asked the City to stop this unconstitutional practice, to repeal the ordinance that arguably authorized it, and to set up a fund to compensate defendants who had been sentenced to jail for non-jailable offenses.  The City Attorney’s Office, to its credit, promptly agreed and worked collaboratively with the ACLU of Colorado to reach the finalized settlement agreement that we are proudly announcing today.”

A 2015 ACLU of Colorado investigation revealed hundreds of cases where the Colorado Springs Municipal Court imposed a fine for violation of a city ordinance and then, when the defendant could not pay, converted the fine into a jail sentence, which court documents labeled as a “pay or serve” sentence.  A “pay or serve” sentence ordered a defendant to either pay the amount due or serve time in jail at a rate of $50 a day.  In three-fourths of the “pay or serve” sentences, defendants were jailed for non-jailable offenses, meaning that they were punishable by a fine only.  In some cases, the Court imposed multiple consecutive jail sentences on defendants who had more than one citation for a non-jailable offense.

Shawn Hardman, an ACLU client, was sentenced on four occasions to a total of more than 90 days in jail for non-jailable panhandling tickets.  Like many other victims of the City’s debtor’s prison practices, Hardman was convicted for merely displaying a sign inviting charity -- conduct that the City acknowledges did not violate the panhandling ordinance.

“In the year preceding the ACLU’s investigation, this homeless man, who had not broken the law for which he was repeatedly cited, was sentenced to serve nearly three months in jail for a non-jailable offense, solely because he was poor,” said ACLU of Colorado Staff Attorney Rebecca T. Wallace.

“I was trapped in a cell that it seemed like I could never get out of. I was told over and over that I either had to pay or go back to jail.  I was homeless and jobless, so the cycle kept repeating,” said Hardman. “I am thankful for this settlement, because it will help me keep a roof over my head, something I have wanted for a long time.  Even more, I am proud that the settlement will protect other people living on the streets in Colorado Springs from going through what I went through – being jailed just because I was poor.”

Hardman and three other ACLU clients will receive payment within 14 days.  An additional 62 persons are eligible for compensation based on a rate of $125 per day for each day of incarceration solely for a non-jailable offense.  The City and the ACLU will work together to notify those individuals of their eligibility, and they will be able to claim compensation until December 30, 2016 or up to two years from the date of their incarceration, whichever is later.

Colorado Springs will also provide training on constitutional protections for indigent defendants, which will include presentations by ACLU attorneys, to all its municipal prosecutors and judges, as well as defense attorneys contracted to represent indigent defendants.  The City has already complied with its promise to repeal the ordinance that authorized judges to convert fines to jail time.

“We hope today’s settlement sends a loud and clear message to municipal courts throughout the state to stop using jail or the threat of jail to collect debts from persons who are too poor to pay,” Silverstein said.

In recent years, the ACLU of Colorado has called for greater scrutiny of municipal court practices, especially as they affect indigent defendants.   Two bills concerning the rights of impoverished defendants in municipal courts were passed by bipartisan majorities in the Colorado legislature this year and are now awaiting Governor Hickenlooper’s signature.  HB 15-1309 would ensure a public defender at first appearance for indigent defendants held in jail. HB 15- 1311 further updates a law passed in 2014 to stop courts from jailing poor defendants for failing to pay court-ordered fines. The ACLU of Colorado is calling on the Governor to sign both bills without delay.

more on this case