Nursing moms at work

When women return to their jobs after giving birth and want to pump breast milk during the workday, bosses must accommodate them. Federal law requires companies of all sizes to give an employee who is nursing time and a private place to pump milk for a year after her child is born.

The law does exempt a business with fewer than 50 employees providing space would create an undue hardship, either in terms of cost or difficulty. The factors the Labor Department uses to determine whether a company would suffer undue hardship include its size, financial resources, nature or structure.

For a tiny company that has only one or two rooms as its premises, it can be difficult to find space. But owners don’t have to set aside space permanently or exclusively for nursing moms; they can create space with a moving partition. As long as a staffer is shielded from view and won’t be disturbed or interrupted while she pumps, a temporary setup is OK.

The law specifically prohibits requiring an employee to use a restroom to pump.

More than half the states have laws governing pumping milk at work, and some offer more protection for staffers than the federal statute.

You can learn more about the laws on the websites of the Labor Department, www.dol.gov, and of the National Conference of State Legislatures, www.ncsl.org.