Got Milk? Recent Legislation Addresses Nursing Mothers at the Workplace
 
March 1, 2000
 

The number of states with legislation addressing nursing mothers in the workplace nearly doubled last year.

In Georgia and Tennessee, new laws closely tracking the language of an existing Minnesota law encourage employers to provide reasonable unpaid break time each day to employees who need to express breast milk for their infant children. The new laws also encourage employers to make reasonable efforts to provide a location (other than a toilet stall) where employees can express breast milk in privacy.

Taking a stronger stand, the Hawaii legislature recently passed an amendment to its fair employment practices law to provide that no employer can prohibit an employee from expressing breast milk during any meal period or other break period required to be provided by the employer by law or by a collective bargaining agreement.

Other states, such as California, Florida and Texas, enacted similar laws in 1998. A California law simply urges all employers to support and encourage working mothers who want to continue breast-feeding. Both the Texas Breast-Feeding Rights and Policies Law and the Florida Public Health Law encourage breast-feeding in the work place by allowing businesses that develop a policy supporting work site breast-feeding to use the designation "mother-friendly" or "baby-friendly" in their promotional materials.

Federal legislation addressing nursing mothers in the workplace, also has been enacted and more may be on the way. President Clinton recently chalked up a victory for nursing mothers when he signed a law making breast-feeding legal on all federal property where a woman and her child have a right to be. Under the law, it is illegal to ask a woman who is nursing her infant child to move from federal property.

Two other bills that protect women's right to breast-feed that may affect employers - The Pregnancy Discrimination Act Amendment of 1999 and the Breastfeeding Promotion and Employers' Tax Incentive Act of 1999 - are currently pending in Congress. The proposed amendment provides that a woman cannot be fired or discriminated against in the work place for expressing breast milk during her own lunch time or break time. The proposed tax incentive encourages employers to set up a safe, private and sanitary environment for women to express breast milk by providing a tax credit for employers who set up a lactation site, purchase or rent lactation-related equipment, hire a lactation consultant, or otherwise promote a lactation-friendly environment.

Staying one step ahead of the law, a number of major corporations have already included mother-friendly programs in their employee benefits packages. These companies have been prompted by studies citing the decreased rate of absenteeism of mothers who continue to breast-feed after returning to the job and the lower medical bills of nursing mothers and their children. Some companies report that accommodating mothers has been excellent for their bottom line, estimating a return of up to 400% on funds invested in lactation programs. Thus, while the issue of mothers breastfeeding in the employment context is still largely left to the discretion of individual employers, facilitating a lactation program may be in employers' own good interest.

For more information please call Patricia Nance at 1-888-688-8500.