Expands workplace lactation accommodation requirements

Existing law requires employers to provide a reasonable amount of break time to employees desiring to express milk for the employee’s infant child. Existing law also requires an employer to make reasonable efforts to provide the employee with the use of a room, or other location, other than a toilet stall, in close proximity to the employees’ work area, for the employee to express milk in private. Existing law exempts an employer from the break time requirement if the employer’s operations would be seriously disrupted by providing that time to employees desiring to express milk. Existing law subjects employers who violate these provisions to a civil penalty of $100 per violation and authorizes the Labor Commissioner to issue citations for those violations.

Existing law prohibits an employer, who is required by law to give an employee a rest period during a workday, from requiring the employee to work during the rest period. Existing law requires an employer to pay the employee one additional hour of pay, at the employee’s regular rate of compensation, for each rest period not provided.

This bill would require an employer to provide a lactation room or location that includes prescribed features and would require an employer, among other things, to provide access to a sink and refrigerator in close proximity to the employee’s workspace, as specified. The bill would require an employer to develop and implement a policy regarding lactation accommodation and make it available to employees, as specified. The bill would also require an employer to maintain records of requests for lactation accommodation for 3 years and to give the Labor Commission access to those records. The bill would provide that specified employers could seek an exemption from any of the requirements of these provisions if the employer could show that the requirement posed an undue hardship based on specified criteria.

The bill would deem denial of reasonable break time or adequate space to express milk a failure to provide a rest period in accordance with state law. The bill would prohibit an employer from discharging, or in any other manner discriminating or retaliating against, an employee for exercising or attempting to exercise rights under these provisions and would establish specific additional remedies.

The bill would require the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement to create a model lactation accommodation request form and to make it available for download from its Internet Web site by employees and employers. The bill would authorize the division to establish a model lactation accommodation policy and lactation accommodation best practices to provide guidance to employers.