Breast-pump rage
Fertility clinic fired ‘no class’ staffer: suit
An Upper West Side fertility clinic told an employee she had “no class” because she needed to pump breast milk on the job, then canned her, she claims in a lawsuit.
Jessica Mack had a newborn when she began working as a financial consultant for the Neway Fertility Clinic on West 79th Street in 2016, but that apparently didn’t matter to the facility when she sought a place to pump breast milk for her 1-month-old, the Brooklyn mother of two says.
“There was no apprehension because there was never anything said to me to make me think, ‘This is not the place for me,’ ” she told The Post.
Neway directed her to use a tiny bathroom, which had no electrical socket for the pump, and “no countertop, no space. It was just not doable,” she said in the Manhattan federal suit.
Neway owner Johee Sohn told Mack, 40, she had “no common sense” and “no class,” she says. Sohn told her not to pump in the office, and days later, Mack was fired, she claims.
She’s suing the clinic for discrimination and says the business violated labor laws by not providing a suitable place for her to pump.
“It’s so sad because this is a place that helps people make babies,” she said. “It’s such an oxymoron. You’re here to help women get pregnant but once you do, you hate them?”
But a lawyer for Neway claimed Mack was fired because she duped a coworker into drawing her blood.
“Ms. Mack was terminated from Neway Fertility because she misrepresented to a Neway phlebotomist that a Neway doctor had authorized that phlebotomist to draw Ms. Mack’s blood,” attorney Susan Salazar said.