Nancy Pelosi said they had to pass the health care reform bill so we could know what is in it. The newest revelation is a change in the Fair Labor Standards Act to require employers to provide time and a place other than a bathroom for breast feeding mothers to express milk.
Power Line blog reported:
Buried in the newly enacted health care reform legislation is a provision that amends the Fair Labor Standards Act to require employers to provide a "reasonable break time for an employee to express breast milk for a nursing child for 1 year after the child's birth each time such employee has need to express the milk." In addition, the employer must provide for this purpose "a place, other than a bathroom, that is shielded from view and free from intrusion from coworkers and the public."
Businesses that employ fewer than 50 employees are exempt...
1 comment:
This would be about the only good thing in this bill. As a past and soon to be nursing mom, having no where to pump but a smelly germy bathroom stall, while sitting perched precariously on the edge of a toilet seat half-naked with one or both breasts encased in the plastic breast cones attached to a noisy pump, is not very conducive to a calm or clean environment for pumping milk for your baby. Besides the fact that a lot of these bathrooms don't have very many outlets for plugging in the breast pump, so mom is stuck carrying an extension cord as well.
Most nursing moms are happy with an empty, windowless office (or where the windows have blinds or other covering), with a working outlet, a chair, a locking door, and a desk or table. We don't think it's too much to ask.
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