Providing Urgent Maternal Protections for Nursing Mothers Act
Floor Speech
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Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Madam Speaker, I rise today in opposition to H.R. 3110.
This act puts overly burdensome, one-size-fits-all requirements on businesses.
While I believe empowering women in the workplace is important, we must not saddle businesses with rigid policies that will open them up to legal action. We, instead, must support flexible policies that allow women to thrive in the workplace.
This bill's flawed scheme and expansive mandate do more harm than good and will further bog down businesses that are already struggling to recover from the pandemic. During this difficult time, the last thing small businesses need is more sweeping mandates.
More than 2 million women left the labor force in 2020. Now more than ever, we need to advocate for flexible workplace policies that improve conditions for, and empower, working mothers.
I fully support women who wish to enter and return to the workforce, and I understand the challenges that can come with this, especially for nursing mothers. Yet, I don't believe one-size-fits-all mandates are beneficial, not for women and not for employers.
Workplaces are as varied as the people they employ. Putting every workplace under the same standard, despite a job creator's needs or ability to meet that standard, will ultimately be bad for the American worker.
Airlines are just one example of an industry that will be negatively impacted if this bill is signed into law. Under this bill's rigid requirements, airlines may have to rethink plane designs or modify aircraft to provide a private space, other than a bathroom, for nursing mothers to pump, as required under the bill.
The rigid break requirements in the bill are also inappropriate for airlines because flight crews have varying responsibilities in preparation for and throughout flights, which ensure the safety and security of passengers.
Exposing airlines and other businesses to such inflexible requirements will hurt struggling businesses.
Further, not all nursing mothers have the same needs. Pretending that they do might be convenient, but it also demonstrates ignorance about the diverse circumstances that mothers are in.
I wholeheartedly believe that it is possible to provide women with a healthy environment in which to work and simultaneously to allow businesses flexibility in providing accommodations.
When I first entered the workforce, nursing-accommodation requirements for women in the workplace were not even on the horizon. Countless workplaces now provide such accommodations, and rightly so. Current law provides accommodations for hourly workers.
Creating a healthy place for women to thrive is important to us all, but there is a right way to go about this and a wrong way. H.R. 3110 is the wrong way.
Most employers have their employees' best interests at heart, but H.R. 3110 treats our job creators as if they are out to harm the very women they depend on to keep their businesses running.
Again, this is the wrong way to go about empowering women in the workplace.
This bill's excessive penalties, expansive mandate, and lack of clarity will create a perfect storm for frivolous lawsuits. Unfounded lawsuits cost businesses billions every year in the United States. We should do all we can to prevent opening businesses up to harmful legal action.
I would like to remind my colleagues that Representative Miller-Meeks submitted her bill, the Supporting Working Mothers Act, to the Rules Committee as an amendment to provide a commonsense alternative to the PUMP Act.
That is a sensible amendment that meets the actual needs of nursing mothers without forcing overly burdensome regulations on our job creators.
That amendment, unlike the PUMP Act, expands access to nursing accommodations in the workplace without relying on punitive mandates that expose businessowners to costly litigation.
The Supporting Working Mothers Act adds nursing-accommodation coverage for white collar executive, administrative, or professional employees, ensuring that over 80 percent of currently exempt women are covered.
That amendment also includes a fair and workable process to ensure accommodations are provided for nursing mothers by encouraging collaboration between workers and employers to identify and make improvements when accommodations are insufficient.
Representative Miller-Meeks' commonsense amendment serves nursing mothers in the workforce without sacrificing the well-being of our job creators. This is the right way to empower women.
I am extremely disappointed that the Democrat majority refused to make the amendment in order. Democrats chose to stifle debate on this commonsense approach to nursing accommodations in favor of a flawed mandate.
Because the bill is impractical and overly punitive, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on H.R. 3110.
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Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from Iowa (Mrs. Miller-Meeks).
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Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Good).
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Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Mrs. Miller).
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Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Madam Speaker, H.R. 3110 leaves a whole host of unanswered questions for employers regarding their obligations under the bill as written. H.R. 3110 threatens job creators with disproportionate penalties for technical or unintentional violations of the FLSA's accommodation requirements.
For example, are employers required to build a separate room to provide these accommodations?
H.R. 3110 fails to answer this question or the circumstances and specifications an employer would need to know to comply with such a requirement, or how such requirements would interact with other Federal laws.
For instance, the bill does not clarify whether the space must be compliant with Americans with Disabilities Act, ADA, accessibility requirements, or how it will fit in with the ADA requirements, such as clear path of travel. Nor does the legislation give appropriate guidance as to whether the space must be permanent or temporary. In addition, the remedies in H.R. 3110 go far beyond what is recoverable with respect to other proven wage-and-hour and break violations under both Federal law and State laws.
The expansion of remedies in the bill will increase litigation and result in a financial windfall for trial lawyers. But these penalties do not address the employees' main interest in obtaining appropriate break time and space. Expanded monetary damages will undoubtedly lead to more litigation and the additional delays that litigation brings in already overburdened courts. It also should be noted that the Department of Labor is better suited to enforce technical violations of the FLSA quickly and effectively; litigation is no solution.
DOL has institutional knowledge of Federal labor laws, including the FLSA, and is equipped to provide accurate guidance to employers.
To understand the implications of H.R. 3110, one only needs to look at the proliferation of lawsuits for ``gotcha'' technical violations throughout various Federal and State wage-and-hour laws or the ADA to recognize that costly litigation will follow and positive results for employees will be delayed.
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Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Madam Speaker, supporters of H.R. 3110 claim the bill merely fills unintended gaps in the nursing-accommodation requirements signed into law in 2010, but this description is not accurate.
H.R. 3110 imposes a flawed scheme full of unreasonable expanded mandates, including overly-broad coverage coupled with gratuitous and disproportionate penalties. The bill expands the Fair Labor Standards Act's coverage of break time for nursing mothers to all 143 million employees covered by the act. As a result, H.R. 3110 will require one- size-fits-all nursing accommodations and impose substantial compliance burdens on a wide variety of workplaces and industries.
Admitting this problem in the underlying bill, the manager's amendment attempts to mitigate the bill's requirements so that they are compatible with ensuring safety and security for airline passengers and flight crews.
H.R. 3110 requires that airline employees have access to an enclosed area for pumping breast milk, even though aircrafts designs are regulated by the FAA for safety, security, and reliability, with limited ability to add additional enclosed space. Remote and rural airports also face unique challenges because of the smaller planes in use at those airports. It is even more challenging to provide a private space in a commercial aircraft other than a bathroom, as mandated by H.R. 3110.
Additionally, many of these planes have small flight crews with few redundancies in duties. Under the bill, they would be hard-pressed to maintain appropriate staffing levels and access to services. Exposing businesses to inflexible and unworkable requirements, coupled with increased penalties for alleged violations, will clearly create new incentives for trial lawyers.
H.R. 3110 will only encourage trial lawyers to file more lawsuits of questionable validity targeting unsuspecting business owners. Supporters of H.R. 3110 say the bill is about providing women with better accommodations in the workplace, but the truth is the bill fails to live up to that promise.
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Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Madam Speaker, consideration of H.R. 3110 marks the latest in a series of affronts to small businesses perpetuated by House Democrats throughout the 117th Congress. Last month, Democrat members of the Committee on Education and Labor voted to increase drastically the penalties on employers, including a 512 percent increase in Occupational Safety and Health Act penalties and a whopping 900 percent increase in Fair Labor Standards Act penalties on job creators, including small businesses.
Democrats also voted to authorize the National Labor Relations Board to levy $50,000 and $100,000 fines on small business owners for business activities that are currently lawful.
Republican Members offered several amendments at the committee's reconciliation markup to exempt small businesses from the devastating impacts of those provisions. However, these commonsense amendments were voted down by committee Democrats on party-line votes.
The bill we are debating today was reported out of committee with disturbing implications for smaller employers. Currently under the FLSA, businesses with fewer than 50 employees may demonstrate that the FLSA's nursing-accommodation requirements would impose an undue hardship. The FLSA's unique hardship provision is an affirmative defense to claims that small businesses must demonstrate in court.
Committee Democrats chose to cut the undue hardship exemption in half to fewer than 25 employees. While this Democrat affront to small business was corrected in the manager's amendment, more changes are necessary to protect small businesses fully.
H.R. 3110 imposes excessive penalties for minor or technical violations of the FLSA's nursing-accommodation requirement, while failing to anticipate workplace realities in providing accommodations. These excessive penalties, combined with the high probability of minor or unintended infractions related to compliance with a complex mandate on hundreds of thousands of new businesses, will lead to a proliferation of expensive and protracted lawsuits, resulting in delayed accommodations for workers.
In contrast to the shortcomings of H.R. 3110, Dr. Miller-Meeks submitted a responsible substitute amendment for consideration, which implements commonsense and workable alterations to the FLSA's nursing- accommodation requirements. The Miller-Meeks' amendment adds nursing accommodation coverage for white collar executive, administrative, or professional employees while preserving FLSA treatment of unique and disparate workplaces.
Her amendment also preserves the Secretary of Labor's FLSA enforcement authority to address shortcomings in workplace accommodations through injunctive relief or levy civil monetary penalties against repeat and willful violators.
Dr. Miller-Meeks' amendment would not only ensure that the needs of small businesses are protected, but would also update FLSA nursing- accommodation requirements in a way that meets the needs of both mothers and employers.
It is disappointing and unfortunate that the Democrat leadership prevented the Miller-Meeks' amendment from being considered today.
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Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Van Duyne).
Ms. VAN DUYNE. Madam Speaker, if we adopt the motion to recommit, we will instruct the Committee on Education and Labor to consider an amendment to exempt certain industries with unique workplace environments from the requirements in the underlying bill.
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Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Madam Speaker, H.R. 3110 is not the right way to empower women in the workplace.
I support expanding flexible nursing accommodations in the workplace for women, but not in such a way that will unnecessarily increase liability for employers without helping nursing mothers.
Furthermore, this bill levels excessive penalties for minor technical violations, opening our job creators to expensive and spurious lawsuits.
Dr. Miller-Meeks' Supporting Working Mothers amendment is a responsible alternative. It expands nursing accommodation coverage to a variety of workplaces but also maintains exceptions for unique workplaces.
That is the kind of flexible pro-woman and pro-jobs solution we need. We have had enough of Democrats' one-size-fits-all approach and overly broad mandates that hurt the very job creators we are relying on to help our economy recover from this pandemic. It is very disappointing that the majority denied debate on a practical alternative that will meet the needs of working mothers.
Madam Speaker, I encourage my colleagues to vote ``no'' on H.R. 3110. This bill would do much more harm than good. I yield back the balance of my time.
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Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to the amendment.
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Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Madam Speaker, this amendment does nothing to address the shortcomings of H.R. 3110. We do not need a GAO report to know that employers will face numerous challenges in complying with the sweeping requirements imposed by H.R. 3110.
The Fair Labor Standards Act ensures that hourly workers have access to time and space to pump breast milk, while exempting certain professions and industries with unique operating environments.
Working mothers deserve proper accommodations to nurse in a clean and safe environment without fear of losing their jobs, but failing to account for differing workplaces, as H.R. 3110 does, is not the way to help women.
The bill imposes one-size-fits-all treatment on a wide variety of businesses and industries without providing feasible compliance options.
H.R. 3110 would also impose new and excessive penalties for minor or technical violations of the FLSA's nursing accommodation requirement. These unrealistic penalties, combined with compliance challenges resulting from the bill's mandate, will lead to a proliferation of costly and protracted lawsuits. The result will be delayed accommodations for workers.
A report which acknowledges the complexities and liabilities inherent in H.R. 3110 and is released 2 years after the bill takes effect will do nothing to mitigate the bill's failures.
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Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, we have a unique situation here this morning with two Representatives from North Carolina who have totally different opinions of this bill and this amendment.
Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this bill. We can do better. And I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the amendment; it is a day late and a dollar short. We should know what these things are in advance and not after the fact. It is what some of us might call a run-on amendment. We should have had the GAO study earlier to get a better feel for what this bill would do to working mothers and to businesses in our country.
Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Madam Speaker, H.R. 3110 exposes a sweeping, one-size-fits-all mandate on businesses of all sizes that is unworkable and unreasonable. The bill treats all nursing mothers and workplaces as if they are the same, despite known differences in employees' needs, industry-specific challenges, and employers' abilities to meet the requirements.
This amendment calls for a Government Accountability Office study on racial disparities with respect to access to workplace accommodations to pump breast milk and for GAO to submit recommendations to Congress-- after the bill becomes law.
Madam Speaker, let me be clear, crystal clear. I abhor any type of discrimination. There should be no place for discrimination in our country, in our employment, or anywhere.
A study of this kind, however, should have been commissioned before the committee debated far-reaching legislation to impose a flawed mandate on all businesses in the United States. Instead, H.R. 3110 was rushed to a committee markup within 2 weeks of introduction. Democrats often put the cart before the horse, and this amendment does nothing to remedy the shortcomings of this legislation.
Nursing women are not a monolith. They have unique needs that this legislation ignores. H.R. 3110 is reductive and, working women deserve better.
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Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, let me reiterate again: I have no tolerance whatsoever for any type of discrimination in the workplace or anyplace else. However, if we are going to do a study about potential discrimination, it should be done before a bill is drafted, introduced, and voted on.
This amendment does not improve the very bad underlying bill, H.R. 3110. Therefore, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the amendment, vote ``no'' on the underlying bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
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