The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the new health care reform law, amends the Fair Labor Standards Act to require employers to provide reasonable break times for nursing mothers to express milk. The Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division recently issued a Fact Sheet to provide general information on this requirement.
Under the new law, an employer must provide a mother who has a baby younger than one year old with reasonable break times for the mother to express milk in a place (other than a bathroom) that is shielded from view and free from intrusion from coworkers and the public. The frequency of breaks and the duration of each break may vary. The law applies only to employees who are not exempt from the FLSA’s overtime pay requirements and does not require employers to pay employees for these break times. The law also provides an exception for employers with fewer than fifty employees if compliance would impose an undue hardship.
For assistance in complying with this amendment to the FLSA or any other labor or employment law, please contact the Texas labor and employment lawyers at the Dallas law firm of Clouse Dunn Khoshbin LLP at [email protected].
