Did You Know?

As human resource professionals we are all concerned with the impact of the new health care reform law, but buried on  Page 600 of the law is a revision to the Fair Labor Stabdards Act and many of our peers that I have talked with are not aware of it. This past week the Department of Labor released a fact sheet dealing with the issue.

As of March 23, 2010 employers are no longer able to tell a female employee that if  she needed to express breast milk she needed to go use the facilitiy's restrooms. In fact the legislation specifically prohibited this action.

The regulation informationm sheet released last week provides details about the requirements (See Fact Sheet #73)

General Requirements:

Employers are now required to provide reasonable break time for an employee to express breast milk for her nursing child for a period of one year EACH TIME THE EMPLOYEE HAS THE NEED TO EXPRESS MILK. In order to accommodate this the employer is required to provide "a place,other than a bathroom, that is shielded from view and free from intrusion from both co-workers and the public.

Time and Location of Breaks:

Employersare required to provide a reasonable amount of break time to express milk as frequently as needed by the nursing mother. DOL states that the duration and frequency will vary depending on the needs of the mother.

Coverage and Compensation:

Only employees who are NOT EXEMPT from the FLSA's overtime pay requirements are entitled to breaks to express milk. Employers are not required to provide the breaks to nursing motehrs whoa re exempt from the overtime pay requirements of Section 7 of the FLSA. Employers with fewer than 50 employees are not supject tot he FLSA break time requirement if compliance with the provision would impose an undue hardship.

The law also states that employers are not required under the FLSA to compensate nursing mothers for breaks taken for the purpose of expressing milk. However if you already provide compensated breaks, an employee may use the breast milk express break as part of that compensated time.

 

Posted via email from hrstrategist@Net-Speed