It’s been a long time coming for working, breastfeeding moms. On top of limited maternity leave, when moms do return to work, many are faced with a lack of support from employers when pumping breast milk.
But things are looking up after the U.S. Senate passed the Providing Urgent Maternal Protections (PUMP) for Nursing Mothers Act in December 2022.
The PUMP Act — passed as part of the $1.7 trillion 2023 omnibus spending bill signed by President Biden — requires employers to provide break time and a private, non-bathroom space for all breastfeeding employees.
The act extends protections to salaried workers, who weren’t included in the 2010 Break Time for Nursing Mothers law. The legislation provided only hourly employees with time and space to pump, leaving nearly one-in-four women of childbearing age unprotected, according to the U.S. Breastfeeding Committee.
But now, any lactating professional, seasonal, or agriculture worker — hourly or salaried — is entitled to workplace support.
More breastfeeding support at work could mean more mothers and babies accessing the health benefits that nursing offers.
When breastfed, infants have a lower chance of developing asthma, obesity, and other illnesses. For moms, nursing lowers their risk for breast and ovarian cancer, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and postpartum depression.
Although research on the health benefits of breastfeeding is vast, and employers have been required to provide accommodations for more than a decade, some mothers still find themselves being forced to choose between nursing and losing their jobs.
According to the Center for WorkLife Law, lactation discrimination in the workplace can look like being denied pumping breaks when in pain or leaking milk, or being fired just for asking.
In some instances, lactating employees are denied a private place to express milk and receive inappropriate gestures from co-workers.
Jocelyn Frye, president of the National Partnership for Women & Families said the passage of the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act was a win for gender and racial equity.
She added, “For far too long, pregnant workers have gone without the critical protections many people need to maintain a healthy pregnancy: protections like the ability to take bathroom breaks during a shift, sit down while working a cash register, or pause to take a drink of water to stay hydrated.”
The legislation, which passed with bipartisan support, was also endorsed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Retail Industry Leaders Association, Society for Human Resource Management and National Retail Federation.
The Center for WorkLife Law reviewed breastfeeding discrimination cases for a 2019 report and found that three-fourths involved economic loss, with nearly two-thirds ending in job loss.
Additionally, lactating workers who are discriminated against become vulnerable to health issues like painful infections, diminished milk supply, or weaning their babies earlier than recommended by doctors.
These acts could significantly impact Black women and other women of color.
“Lactation discrimination impacts women at all socio-economic levels but has particularly harsh effects for low-wage workers, who are more likely to be women of color,” the authors wrote in the report.
The PUMP Act comes at a time when Black mothers are less likely to initiate or sustain breastfeeding.
Data from 2015 published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reveals that only 69% of Black moms initiated breastfeeding, compared to 86% of white moms.
And when it comes to exclusive breastfeeding — where infants are fed breast milk only — 17% of Black mothers nursed their babies for up to six months, versus 29% of white mothers.
While the Break Time Law entitled breastfeeding workers to one year of workplace protection following the birth of their child or children, the PUMP Act extends those rights to two years.
The Senate also passed the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act — a law that requires employers to make accommodations for employees experiencing pregnancy or childbirth-related medical conditions.
Specifically, the bill considers it unlawful to:
-Fail to make reasonable accommodations to known limitations of such employees unless the accommodation would impose an undue hardship on an entity’s business operation;
-Require a qualified employee affected by such a condition to accept an accommodation other than any reasonable accommodation arrived at through an interactive process;
-Reny employment opportunities based on the need of the entity to make such reasonable accommodations to a qualified employee;
-Require such employees to take paid or unpaid leave if another reasonable accommodation can be provided; or
-Take adverse action in terms, conditions, or privileges of employment against a qualified employee requesting or using such reasonable accommodations.
Tina Sherman, who serves as senior campaign director for maternal justice at MomsRising, says America’s “moms and families won a major, meaningful, long overdue victory” with the passing of the PUMP and Pregnant Workers Fairness Acts.
‘When lawmakers enact these two essential measures, breastfeeding moms will no longer be forced to pump breastmilk in bathrooms, cars, closets, and cafeterias; and fewer pregnant workers will be forced out of their jobs because employers deny them reasonable accommodations like carrying water bottles and taking more bathroom breaks,” she said in a statement.
“Both these measures will especially help low-income women and women of color, and they will make America’s moms and families more economically secure.”
Vania Leveille, senior legislative counsel at the ACLU also celebrated the passage of the PUMP Act for Nursing Mothers, sponsored by U.S. Sens. Jeff Merkley, D-OR, and Lisa Murkowski, R-AK, which was also included in the spending bill.
The Supreme Court’s standard for assessing pregnant workers’ rights and their needs for accommodations made the bill necessary, said Dina Bakst, co-founder of A Better Balance, a nonprofit focused on litigation, legislative advocacy and education on labor issues.
Bakst, in testimony to Congress in favor of the bill, said the court’s 2015 decision in Young v. UPS “laid out an overly complicated, burdensome standard requiring pregnant workers to jump through legal hoops and prove discrimination” to get accommodations. The court held that pregnant workers could only have the same accommodations as workers who were limited by injury or disability.
Bakst also testified that a 2019 report by her organization found that as a result of the court’s decision, pregnant workers lost 29 out of 43 pregnancy accommodation cases in lower courts.
As recently as August 2022, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit decided that Wal-Mart did not violate the law when it said pregnant workers were not included in a policy at a distribution center in Wisconsin that allowed workers injured on the job to be assigned work that would not aggravate their injuries, Bloomberg reported.
The court said Wal-Mart did not need to provide any justification for why the policy was limited to only those workers, the argument made by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission which brought the suit on behalf of female workers.
Businesses with 50 or more employees must provide the time and space for pumping immediately, but the ability to bring a complaint against an employer and take legal action doesn’t begin until April.
Transportation workers are treated differently under the PUMP Act, with bus drivers for long-distance bus companies and some railroad workers having a three-year delay in the bill applying to them.
There is also an exemption for air carriers and a difference in how the law affects some railroad workers. Employers do not have to provide breaks for railroad workers in train crews if it would be too expensive for the employer and if it created unsafe conditions for another rail worker who has the right of way, the amendment’s language explains.