Restaurateurs and other employers will be required to make more accommodations for pregnant and nursing employees under two last-minute additions to the 4,100-page omnibus spending bill that became law last week.
One of the provisions requires employers to make additional accommodations for pregnant employees, such as permitting the women to take additional bathroom breaks, carry a water bottle, switch to less taxing jobs and sit down while working a shift.
The measure does not require the employer to make accommodations that pose an “undue hardship,” such as a significant cost or operational disruption.
The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act also prohibits employers from firing a woman or denying her a job because she is pregnant.
It essentially extends the reasonable accommodation coverage afforded to the disabled by the Affordable Care Act to pregnant workers. Pregnancy is not regarded as a disability.
A second provision of the $1.7 trillion spending bill expands employers’ obligations to nursing employees. The Providing Urgent Maternal Protections for Working Mothers Act, aka the PUMP Act, requires restaurateurs and other employers to provide comfortable privacy areas for mothers to express breast milk for up to two years following a birth.
In addition, the law specifies that an employee who expresses milk on the job site be paid for that time. In addition, a reasonable number of breaks to collect the milk must be provided.
“This is a big—and long overdue—win for working moms who deserve the time and space they need to pump and continue to breastfeed while working,” Sen. Patty Murray, a champion of the PUMP Act, said in a prepared statement.
The PUMP Act has been under consideration by Congress for more than a year, and the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act had similarly been introduced long ago. Both were folded into the omnibus spending bill in its 11th hour of consideration within the Senate, to the voiced pleasant surprise of many lawmakers.
The expanded measure cleared the Senate by a bipartisan vote. The House similarly approved the updated measure on Dec. 23, and President Biden signed the package into law on Dec. 29, averting a shutdown of the federal government.
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