Even workers who are exempt from many of the Fair Labor Standards Act’s protections may be entitled to protections for nursing employees under the Providing Urgent Maternal Protections for Nursing Mothers Act, or PUMP Act, Susana Sanchez, a wage-and-hour investigator for the U.S. Department of Labor, said in a recent webinar.

This is a notable expansion of federal law: Until recent months, only nonexempt workers were entitled to time and space to pump. The PUMP Act, passed last year, expanded those protections to many more workers covered by the FLSA — including employees exempt from the law’s minimum wage and overtime protections.

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Employees are covered by the FLSA if they are employed by a business that has annual sales of at least $500,000. They also may be covered if they are engaged in the operation of a hospital, residential medical or nursing care facilities, schools, preschools or public agencies.

But even if an employer is not covered, individual employees may be qualified if they are engaged in interstate commerce, in the production of goods for interstate commerce or in any closely-related process or occupation directly essential to such production, Sanchez said.

For example, a manager for a multi-state chain of fast food restaurants who is exempt from the FLSA’s overtime pay requirements is nonetheless entitled to break time and space to pump at work for up to one year after the birth of her child, Sanchez...

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