Rights of Nursing Mothers to Express Milk in Workplace

New York State has recently passed legislation that requires all employers, regardless of size, to provide breastfeeding employees with reasonable time to be able to express breast milk for their nursing child in the workplace. Effective July 8, 2008, the New York State Department of Labor has issued guidelines requiring employers to provide written notice of this right to all employees. The written notice can be provided through publication of a notice or by adding a provision regarding these rights to the employee handbook.

The law provides that breastfeeding mothers have the right to express their breast milk at work for up to three years from the birth of the child. Employees should be provided with unpaid break time of no less than 20 minutes to express breast milk at least once every three hours during the workday. Breatfeeding mothers can also use paid break time but the employer is not required to create a paid break for the employee to express breast milk.

In addition, employers are required to make reasonable efforts to provide mothers with a private area or room other than a restroom in which to express their breast milk. The law allows for exceptions to this private room requirement where to do so would be unduly impracticable, inconvenient or expensive. The room or area that is provided should be in close proximity to the area in which the employee is located. If the room is not located in close proximity to the employees work area the employee should be afforded 30 minutes of unpaid break time to express breast milk. The room or area should have, at a minimum, a chair and small table, desk, counter or other flat surface. Employers are encouraged to also provide in the lactation room or area a sink or clean water supply and access to a refrigerator to use to store any expressed breast milk.

An important provision of the new law is that an employer is prohibited from discriminating against an employee that elects to express her breast milk in the workplace. In addition, employers should ensure that employees are not subjected to a hostile work environment based upon expressing breast milk in the workplace. The guidelines recommend that employers add protection for breastfeeding moms to the employer's Anti-Harassment Policy.

What We Recommend

• We recommend drafting a policy to address the rights of nursing mothers to express breast milk in the workplace
• We recommend disseminating this policy to all employees
• We recommend designating a private room other than a restroom that has a sink and refrigerator for nursing moms to use to express breast milk
• We recommend training managers and employees to ensure that moms using this policy are not subjected to unlawful harassment