New California Labor Law Will Aid Breastfeeding Employees

Sacramento, CA 2013 will be a watershed year in the state of California for breastfeeding mothers. That's when a new California labor law goes into effect that bolsters existing rights breastfeeding mothers have with regard to breastfeeding, or expressing breast milk in the workplace.

For breastfeeding mothers as well as pediatric health advocates, AB 2386 is good news. But it also signals those in the legal community to be on the alert for potential plaintiffs when employers who prove unaware, or insensitive to the new law discriminate against their breastfeeding employees, in an affront to California labor code.

Breastfeeding continues to see a resurgence in tandem with the widely held belief that a mother's milk remains, ultimately, the best nourishment for an infant. The practice, however, requires letting go of the convenience that comes with formula and either finding a place to latch when duty calls, or a discrete location to express for a lactating mother when her infant is not with her.

Under California labor employment law, there are already provisions in place for breastfeeding mothers. Employers are required to accommodate their employees who are also nursing mothers, by providing them with a discreet location to express or breastfeed, together with the appropriate break time to accomplish the task.

Beyond California and labor law, the new federal health reforms also require employers to accommodate their nursing employees in kind.

What there hasn't been, say those in the legal community, is sufficient recourse for breastfeeding mothers who are discriminated against because of their decision to breastfeed. An example of this was a labor lawsuit filed in US Court for the Southern District of Texas. In Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Houston Funding II, the Court ruled that the plaintiff's loss of her job allegedly due to her breastfeeding or lactation was not sex discrimination.

The most recent change to California labor employment law, which takes effect in January, addresses that concern.

AB 2386 effectively amends the statutory definition of sex under the California Fair Employment and Housing Act in an effort to prevent discrimination against a breastfeeding mother in the workplace under California employee labor law. While employers are obligated to continue the practice of accommodating breastfeeding women as they have, the updated statute deepens the importance of employers not to be seen as discriminating against a breastfeeding employee in any way.

Under California state labor laws, as of January 1, 2013 nursing mothers have new protections. Any employer seen as discriminating against a breastfeeding employee may well be closer to a California labor lawsuit with AB 2386 in place.