Hindsight is 20-20.
The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which took effect in June 2023, requires reasonable accommodations for pregnancy, childbirth, and “related medical conditions.” The statute gave authority to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to issue regulations more precisely defining employers’ reasonable accommodation obligations.
The EEOC did that, during the Biden Administration, and made it clear that the PWFA applies to many, many, many things beyond the nine months of gestation.
Including lactation.
The EEOC under the Trump Administration has backed away from some of the positions that it took during the Biden Administration – most notably, whether the Act requires employers to make reasonable accommodations related to elective abortions. But apart from the abortion issue, the Trump EEOC seems to be generally pro-pregnancy, pro-pregnancy accommodation, and pro-PWFA.
And, I suspect, pro-lactation accommodation. The PUMP for Nursing Mothers Act requires covered employers to provide lactation accommodation for the first year after the baby is born. But the EEOC’s position is that lactation accommodation is also required under the PWFA. Generally, if an employer is complying with the PUMP Act, it should also be in compliance with the PWFA as it applies to lactation accommodation. But employers who are not covered by the PUMP Act, or employers who are covered but whose employees want to continue nursing beyond the first year, are required by the...
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