BellyitchBlog

Even though the United States is the only high-income nation without guaranteed paid maternity leave for workers, according to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, most states still given women rights to express breast milk at work.

There are patchwork extra protections provided by states, and some do not apply to all workers or employers, explains employment lawyer Tom Spiggle of The Spiggle Law Firm in Washington, DC.

Federally, new moms benefit from a relatively new law called the Break Time for Nursing Mothers Law which was part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act from 2010 which amended Section 7 of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Specifically, the Break Time for Nursing Mothers Law requires employers to provide a suitable workplace location and reasonable time to break from work to do so until the mother’s child turns one-year old.

This law gave relief to many moms who had been forced to pump milk in unsanitary bathrooms and possibly docked pay or penalized for taking time to pump.

The National Conference of State Legislatures reports that 29 states plus the District of Columbia have at least some sort of workplace breastfeeding laws in effect which are similar to the Break Time for Nursing Mothers Law. For the most part, they require employers to provide unpaid break times and reasonable locations (other than a bathroom) where an eligible employee can express breast milk. Some of these jurisdictions include:

Washington, D.C.
Arkansas
Colorado

A complete list of the other 27 states, along with the corresponding statutes, can be found at the NCSL’s Breastfeeding State Laws website.

Many American women do not yet know that the current US federal law states about what rights women have to pump their milk at work; and what accommodations they are entitled to get from their employers.

Tom Spiggle, author of “You’re Pregnant? You’re Fired!,” who focuses on pregnancy discrimination in the workplace, says that if you are breastfeeding your child, the right to pump milk at work under federal law remains a bit complicated. The Affordable Care Act of 2010, also known as Obamacare, requires employers to allow women to pump breast milk while they are at work, but like many federal regulations covering American workers, it’s shot through with loopholes.

“For the first time, women constitute more than half of the workforce and the fastest growing `segment is women with children under the age of three,” says Spiggle. “Although many workplaces now provide lactation rooms and staggered breaks for breastfeeding mothers, they’re often doing so voluntarily as a good business practice to help retain female employees and not as a matter of law. And a good business practice it is.”

Spiggle says the good news is if a woman is covered under the law, her employer must provide a “reasonable break time” to pump milk each time you need to during the day, which is typically every few hours. That includes any time she would need to retrieve and use any type of breast pump. She must also be given a private space that is not a bathroom where she won’t be bothered by coworkers or customers. (It doesn’t necessarily have to be a dedicated lactation room, however.)

The bad news is a woman’s breast-pumping time doesn’t have to be paid, unless her coworkers also get paid breaks. And not everyone is covered by the new law. For starters, employers only have to meet the requirement if they have 50 or more employees, but as it turns out, only three percent of America’s small businesses (defined as those with fewer than 500 workers) fit that definition in 2010. A company with fewer than 50 employees must comply with the law unless it can prove that it would be an “undue hardship” to do so. The Department of Labor has made it clear that this standard is a very high hurdle to meet.

Also, only those women who are “non-exempt” under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) are covered. The FLSA is a complicated law, but non-exempt employees are generally hourly workers who must be paid overtime. If you make more than $455 a week and have any supervisory responsibility, you may be exempt and therefore not covered by the breastfeeding law. This big loophole leaves out a lot of breastfeeding mothers.

“In a perfect world, bosses would be understanding and accommodate nursing moms’ needs during those few months when they are pumping milk,” adds Spiggle. “After all, few people dispute the benefits of breastfeeding for babies. It’s healthier than formula, not to mention cheaper.”

Good review! Hope this clears everything up.

photo: Reuters

Tom Spiggle

The US and State Workplace Breastmilk Express Laws You Need to Know

Breastfeeding & Pumping at Work: Know Your Rights