This employer offers a comfy lactation room for nursing employees. Another employee says he wants to use it for anxiety breaks.
Updated: 16 minutes agoOur company merged with another and relocated. The new building had family bathrooms that were retrofitted to make a nursing and pumping room with a sink, mini refrigerator, two recliners, electrical outlets and a dimmer switch. Three women in our building use it, coordinating their time on a Slack channel that is visible to everyone.
The man provided a doctor’s note stating he has anxiety, ADHD and sensory processing disorder, and that he needs a space where he can regroup when the office becomes overstimulating. He asked to join their Slack channel and said he would give them priority. Today they have the legal right to fulfill this draining-in-every-sense-of-the-word obligation in a private space that isn’t centered on a toilet.Since 2010, the Fair Labor Standards Act has required employers to provide lactating employees with breaks and “a place, other than a bathroom, that is shielded from view and free from intrusion from co-workers and the public” to pump breast milk as needed.
But as you’ve seen, the law doesn’t spell out all details about implementation. Although lactation space must be free from intrusion while in use, the law doesn’t say the room can’t also serve as a nap or wellness room. It’s up to employers to set policies around that.Dukas-Janakos pointed out that under the PUMP Act, “a lactating person has to have access at any time” to the designated space: “Any time a parent can’t use that room, that’s a violation of the law.
Another concern is maintaining sanitary conditions in a shared space. “I wouldn’t expect a new parent to be in a room pumping if someone in there who was sick or making a mess,” said Dukas-Janakos. And, Cassi Janakos added, “parents feel better if other people don’t have access to their milk.”
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