A Pregnant Worker, Forced to Go on Unpaid Leave, Is Back on the Job

As readers of “The Working Life” column know, Floralba Fernandez Espinal was forced out of her job at a thrift store in the Bronx last month because she was pregnant and could no longer do heavy lifting.

Now, thanks to the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which took effect in January, after nearly two months without work, Ms. Fernandez is back on the job and rejoicing over her victory.

The law requires employers to make reasonable accommodations for pregnant workers, so long as those accommodations don’t cause undue hardship for the employer; Ms. Fernandez’s case was one of the first tests of the law. After several rounds of negotiations with her union representatives and lawyers, the thrift store’s management agreed to reinstate Ms. Fernandez in a light-duty capacity, which was what her obstetrician had ordered. This week, she has been pricing and hanging clothing instead of hauling heavy piles of clothing from the storeroom to the showroom as she was required to do in the past. Her employer, Unique Thrift, is a national chain of thrift shops with a store in the Kingsbridge section of the Bronx.

Unique Thrift also agreed to give Ms. Fernandez $1,088 in back pay, to maintain her level of seniority at the company and to comply with all of the requirements of the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, her lawyers said.

Ms. Fernandez, who earns $8 an hour and has worked at Unique Thrift for about two years, desperately needs the back pay, her union representatives said. During her time out of work, she struggled to pay her bills. Ms. Fernandez, who is 22 and four and a half months pregnant, had to borrow money from her family to buy groceries, and her boyfriend, a livery taxi driver, worked double shifts to help pay rent and utilities.

Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, which represented Ms. Fernandez, praised her for “the courage to pursue her rights.”

Dina Bakst, co-president of a Better Balance, a legal advocacy group, represented Ms. Fernandez along with Larry Cary in the negotiations with Unique Thrift. She said she hoped that Ms. Fernandez’s victory “will give other pregnant women in New York City, especially those in low wage and physically demanding jobs, the courage to stand up for what they need to stay healthy and on the job.”

In a statement, Unique Thrift’s management declined to discuss the specifics of Ms. Fernandez’s case, but said the company “has had, and will continue to have, many pregnant employees on its active work force.”

New York Today: Bundle Up, It’s Almost March

Damon Winter/The New York Times Anorak, check.

Good Wednesday morning to you.

It is 27 degrees.

Here’s something odd: In 67 hours, it will be March.

Days are lengthening â€" there is as much light now as there is in mid-October.

The sun inches higher in the sky.

But the thermometer still seems convinced that it’s mid-January.

Temperatures for the next seven days will average about 12 degrees below normal â€" just below freezing during the day, down to 20 at night.

That would actually be well below normal in mid-January.

Oh, and it will also snow this morning.

Just a puff â€" probably less than an inch.

The cold, though, is not going away.

This afternoon, the mercury might nudge 30 for a moment, like a strong-man bell rung by a weak man.

But even as the temperature creeps up, so will the wind.

Wind chills will lurk in the teens all day and night, down to the single digits by tomorrow morning as the temperature drops to 15.

By Friday morning, the wind chill will be back in minus-land.

The normal high temperature for this time of year is 45.

It is not in the forecast any time soon.

Enough statistics. Here’s the advisory: Pull down your ear flaps.

And here’s what else is happening.

COMMUTE

Subways: Check latest status.

Rails: Check L.I.R.R., Metro-North or N.J. Transit status.

Roads: Check traffic map or radio report on the 1s or the 8s.

Alternate-side parking is suspended “to facilitate the winter weather response.”

COMING UP TODAY

- The Olympic ice-dancing champions Meryl Davis and Charlie White skate at Rockefeller Center at 8:30 a.m.

- A flash mob featuring the mayor’s Office to Combat Domestic Violence will dance, shout and otherwise rise up to “promote healthy relationships” at the ferry terminal in Staten Island at 7 a.m.

- Mayor de Blasio is having some New Yorkers over to Gracie Mansion tonight to talk about the importance of universal pre-K and after-school programs.

- There’s more to DNA than life. A chemist shows how DNA can be used on a nanoscale to produce objects, crystals and nanodevices, at New York University. 4:30 p.m. [Free]

- “Ask a Native New Yorker”: the author of that Gothamist column, Jake Dobkin, joins NY1’s Pat Kiernan at the Brooklyn Historical Society. 6:30 p.m. [$5]

- Imam Shamsi Ali and Rabbi Marc Schneier talk about the issues dividing and uniting Jews and Muslims, the subject of their book “Sons of Abraham,” at Barnes & Noble on 82nd and Broadway. 7 p.m. [Free]

- Elijah Wood talks about his soon-to-open film “Grand Piano” at the Film Society Lincoln Center. 6:30 p.m. [Free, arrive one hour early]

- Rosie Perez discusses her memoir, “Handbook for an Unpredictable Life: How I Survived Sister Renata and My Crazy Mother and Still Came Out Smiling (With Great Hair),” at St. Joseph’s College in Brooklyn. 7:30 p.m. [Free, R.S.V.P.]

- A show of new art exploring the legacy of Freud and his Austrian peers, “Vienna Complex,” opens at Austrian Cultural Forum New York on the East Side. 6 p.m. [Free]

- A philosopher, Zev Adams, muses on the subjective experience of color and what it means, at the Brooklyn Public Library. 7 p.m. [Free]

- For more events, see The New York Times Arts & Entertainment guide.

IN THE NEWS

- Spike Lee, multimillionaire resident of the Upper East Side, went on a rant against the gentrification of his native Brooklyn in a speech last night. [Daily News]

- A toxicologist took the stand in Kerry Kennedy’s defense at her driving-while-on-sleeping-pills trial. [New York Times]

Joseph Burgess contributed reporting.

New York Today is a morning roundup that stays live from 6 a.m. till late morning.

What would you like to see here to start your day? Post a comment, email us at nytoday@nytimes.com or reach us via Twitter using #NYToday.

Find us on weekdays at nytoday.com.