Providing Urgent Maternal Protections for Nursing Mothers Act
Floor Speech
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Ms. ADAMS. Madam Speaker, I rise today as chair of the Subcommittee on Workforce Protection; co-founder and co-chair of the Black Maternal Health Caucus; as one of the original cosponsors of the bipartisan PUMP for Nursing Mothers Act; and as the mother of Jeanelle and Billy.
The issue before us today is one of equity and fairness. In our country, mothers often have to choose between providing for their families or nursing their babies.
The PUMP for Nursing Mothers Act ensures that millions of working mothers have the access and protections they need to nurse for as long as they choose to do so.
So, why is this Bill so important? As the co-chair of the Black Maternal Health Caucus, I know how important it is to break down the barriers that hold nursing mothers and their children back from the best possible health outcomes.
Every major medical authority strongly encourages nursing for at least the first year of life, as it provides significant health and nutritional benefits to both the mother and infant.
By closing an unintended loophole, the PUMP for Nursing Mothers Act provides protection and support to an additional 9 million working mothers who have been forced to choose between nursing and earning a paycheck.
Fundamentally, this bill says that nursing mothers should not be punished for making the best choices for their health, and the health of their children.
Especially during this pandemic and America's maternal health crisis, I urge each of my colleagues to cast a vote for this critical legislation, and I urge the Senate to send it to President Biden's desk.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, I rise today in support H.R. 3110, the ``Pump for Nursing Mothers Act,'' which will close an unintentional loophole in the 2010 Break Time for Nursing Mothers Act.
The 2010 law requires employers to provide break time and a place for hourly wage-earning and some salaried employees to express breast milk at work for one year after the birth of the employee's child.
Unfortunately, this law unintentionally excluded a quarter of all working women--nearly nine million employees--from protection.
H.R. 3110 closes this coverage gap by extending the law's protections to cover salaried employees as well as other categories of employees currently exempted from protections, such as teachers, nurses, and farmworkers.
H.R. 3110 would also provide employers clarity on paid and unpaid pumping time.
The bill leaves in place existing law protecting many salaried workers from having their pay docked and clarifies that employers must pay an hourly employee for any time spent pumping if the employee is also working.
Lastly, the bill would ensure that nursing mothers have access to remedies that are available for other violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act.
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, women with children are the fastest-growing segment of the workforce, and balancing work and family is an important priority for all employees.
More than 80% of new mothers in the United States begin breastfeeding, 1 and 6 in every 10 new mothers are in the workforce.
New parents face an incredible amount of increased difficulties while juggling work, family and mental and emotional tolls that are exacerbated as a new parent.
According to a study published in Reviews in Obstetrics and Gynecology, breastfeeding provides health benefits for not only infants, but also for mothers.
For mothers, abstaining from breastfeeding has been associated with an increase in developing various types of cancers, type 2 diabetes, heart attacks, retained gestational weight gain and metabolic syndrome in adult women.
For infants, not being breastfed is associated with infectious illnesses such as pneumonia, ear infections, gastroenteritis, and can increase the risk of developing childhood-onset obesity, type 1 and 2 diabetes, leukemia and SIDS.
This bill will ensure that mothers will no longer be forced to choose between their own health, their infant's health, and their income.
This includes individuals like Melissa Hodgkins, who has had to bring suit against her employer simply to provide workers with a clean, private place and breaks to breast pump at work.
Her coworkers were often of losing their paychecks to ask the airline to accommodate them; in fact, when some of her coworkers did ask for breaks and a place to pump, her employer actually prohibited them from pumping at work, and even forced them off the job without a paycheck.
The PUMP for Nursing Mothers Act will stop such bad actions by employers and alleviate the disparities that currently exist between breastfeeding employees and their coworkers, sending a clear message that the workforce will protect and support women who opt to balance a career and motherhood.
For these reasons, I encourage all Members to support H.R. 3110, the ``Pump for Nursing Mothers Act.'' [From ACLU, Sept. 30, 2021] The PUMP Act Would Protect Nursing Workers Like Me (By Melissa Hodgkins)
I took Frontier Airlines to court for making it impossible for me to pump breast milk at work. Other workers shouldn't have to fight for their rights like I did.
When started my career as a flight attendant, I never imagined that I wouldn't be able to continue breastfeeding after I went back to work. I thought that, like most workplaces, my airline would be required by federal law to provide workers a clean, private place and breaks to pump at work. (That's thanks to a provision known as the Break Time for Nursing Mothers law.)
But it turns out my employer isn't. That's because flight attendants are among the approximately 9 million women who are excluded from the law's protection--along with other transportation workers, teachers, agricultural workers, nurses, and many others. A bill before Congress right now-- the PUMP for Nursing Mothers Act--would fix that. Congress should act now to pass it.
I first realized the pickle I was in when I became pregnant with my first child and found out that my employer, Frontier Airlines, didn't provide any accommodations for nursing moms. I'd watched other flight attendant moms trying to make it work pumping on the job--and I saw how stressful it was for them.
They were too fearful of losing their paychecks to ask the airline to accommodate them. When some of my coworkers did ask for breaks and a place to pump, Frontier actually prohibited them from pumping at work, and even forced them off the job without a paycheck.
That was when I started to feel like Frontier was making me choose between my career and breastfeeding my baby. I believe breast milk is optimal for babies, and I wanted to give him those health benefits. At the same time, I didn't feel great about pumping in an unsanitary airplane lavatory, and having to scramble to find time to pump between flights, especially given my unpredictable schedule. I was worried I'd lose my job if I had to pump on duty and got reported. Even though I desperately wanted to keep nursing my baby, I just couldn't see how I could make it work. It was a wrenching decision, but I decided I had no choice but to give up breastfeeding in order to go back to work and support my family.
No woman should have to make that kind of decision. But because of the gap in coverage under the current law, too many of us still do. The ACLU is representing me in a lawsuit arguing that Frontier's treatment of pregnant and breastfeeding pilots and flight attendants is discriminatory. But if the airline had not been exempt from the duty under the existing federal Break Time Law to provide breaks and a clean place to pump, we probably would have never had to take Frontier to court over that in the first place.
The PUMP Act would give workers like me the protection we need: a clear requirement that all employers must provide workers who are nursing with the basic accommodations they need. Solutions exist in all industries--including airlines-- that would allow employees to pump safely. And the bill would strengthen the law in other ways, extending protections from one year to two years, clarifying that it covers situations like adoption or stillbirth, and ensuring that when employers are not in compliance, there is a meaningful way to enforce it.
The bill has bipartisan support in Congress. Let's make sure it becomes law so that all workers--no matter what industry they work in--have the choice to continue breastfeeding and the ability to get back to work.
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