DaytonDailyNews.com

The Ohio Civil Rights Commission should not have the last word on how businesses must treat pregnant employees.

Recently, it voted 4-1 (Grace Ramos of Beavercreek was the "no" vote) to require employers with four or more workers to offer pregnant women 12 weeks of unpaid leave. Next, the decision has to be considered by the 10-member Joint Committee on Agency Rule Review, which could decide to try to validate the requirement.

The commission's argument for change is that the current law is vague. It just tells employers that they have to be "reasonable" about what leave benefits they offer women. Better to be specific, proponents of the change say.

But even if you believe that every woman deserves the choice of taking three months off after the birth of a child — without risking her job — there is another side to the argument.

The federal Family and Medical Leave Act only extends this right to women who work in companies with 50 or more employees — a far cry from four — and she has to have been on the job for at least a year.

The difference between what the feds require and what the commission is advocating is huge. For that reason alone, the commission is on weak ground when it suggests it's not overreaching.

Moreover, the commission's rule amounts to a new law, not a mere enforcement of decisions that state lawmakers have already made. The five-member civil rights commission's charge is to see that anti-discrimination laws are followed — not to impose sweeping new policy.

According to a report by the liberal Policy Matters Ohio (which supports the commission's action), if this change takes affect, Ohio would have one of the half-dozen strictest rules in the country relating to which employers would have to offer time off.

On the merits, policies that give new mothers time away from work— even in small businesses — are the right thing to do. When employers really want to find a way to patch things together while someone is gone, they usually can.

Think about the grand scheme: While 70 percent of mothers of children under age 6 are in the work force, most women don't get pregnant in any given year. If they do, most (60 percent) work until the last month before they deliver. Maybe most relevant to this debate, many women couldn't possibly afford to take 12 weeks off without pay.

If the review committee decides the civil rights commission has exceeded its authority, it can kick the rule to the Legislature. Then, both the Ohio House of Representatives and the Senate would have to vote in favor of invalidating it — or the rule would stand. Ohio's Republican Legislature surely will be tempted to say that the rule goes too far.

Just for their own best interests, employers should bend over backward to accommodate women and families generally; doing so fosters loyalty that contributes to an enterprise's success. But something is wrong if Ohio's elected lawmakers can be bypassed so easily by five unelected, largely anonymous people.

Those who support ensuring that women have the option of specific and significant maternity leave need to carry the day not at the civil rights commission, but in the Legislature and with the governor.