Employment Law Now: III-47 - New York, New World
On June 23, 2025, Governor Jennifer González signed Act 29-2025, amending Puerto Rico’s Act 427-2000, “Act to Regulate Breastfeeding and Breast Milk Extraction Periods,” and strengthening protections for nursing employees....more
Effective January 1, 2027, SB 5217 expands Washington’s Healthy Starts Act (“Act”) to apply the law to employers of any size, require scheduling flexibility for postpartum appointments, mandate paid lactation accommodation...more
Key Takeaways - - A new law in Washington requires all employers, regardless of their size, to have pregnancy and postpartum accommodations in place for their employees by 2027. - The required accommodations include paid...more
California and federal laws require lactation accommodations for breastfeeding employees. The federal lactation accommodation law called the PUMP Act has many of the same requirements as the state law, however there are some...more
Effective May 8, 2025, New York City employers with four or more employees must physically post a copy of their written lactation policy in an area accessible to employees as well as on its intranet if one exists....more
New York City employers will be required to physically and electronically post a copy of their written lactation room accommodation policy under recent amendments to New York City’s lactation accommodations law set to take...more
New York City recently enacted a local law amending the New York City Human Rights Law relating to an employer's obligation to implement and distribute a written lactation room accommodation policy. ...more
New York City employers will be required to physically and electronically post a copy of their written lactation accommodation policy beginning May 8, 2025. This includes a requirement to post the policy in an area accessible...more
On January 20, 2025, President Donald J. Trump named Commissioner Andrea R. Lucas as Acting Chair of the EEOC. Since joining the commission in 2020, Lucas has been a strong advocate for addressing the evolving landscape of...more
The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) is growing up very quickly, and the EEOC has been working fervently, through a combination of guidance and enforcement measures, to ensure it thrives. Specifically, just shy of the...more
The Department of Education recently released guidance to assist colleges and universities comply with pregnancy-related aspects of the new Title IX regulations that took effect on August 1. The “Nondiscrimination Based on...more
Effective June 19, 2024, all employees in the State of New York have the right to paid break time to express breast milk. Specifically, N.Y. Labor Law § 206-c1 provides that “an employer shall provide paid break time for...more
All New York employers are now required to provide 30-minute paid lactation breaks following a recent amendment to Labor Law § 206-c. New York State has long required employers to support working mothers by providing...more
EEOC Publishes Final Regulations on the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act. On June 18, 2024, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (EEOC) final regulations clarifying the scope of the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act...more
Effective June 19, 2024, New York employers will be required to provide up to 30 minutes of paid lactation breaks to employees each time an employee has a reasonable need to express breast milk at work. This change to New...more
The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA), the newest member of the family of federal anti-discrimination laws, is almost one year old! Instead of inviting employers over for cake and photo ops, after one year of accepting...more
When it was enacted in June 2023, the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (“PWFA”) became the first law enforced by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) to require that employers provide pregnancy-related...more
This past year has brought with it expanded employment protections for new and expectant working mothers. These protections, in the form of two federal laws, alter the landscape for how employers can consider the needs of...more
Everyone has been preparing for the recently enacted Pregnant Workers Fairness Act and the PUMP Act. Earlier this month the EEOC gave us another reason to make sure our policies are up to snuff. Frontier Airlines and the EEOC...more
In recent years, the United States has faced an epidemic of maternal mortality and worsening maternal health disparities and ranks well beyond its industrialized peers on these metrics. In response, many employers have taken...more
Recientemente se expidió la Ley 2306 del 31 de julio de 2023, por medio de la cual se promueve la protección de la maternidad y la primera infancia, creando incentivos y normas para la construcción de áreas que permitan la...more
Balancing work and motherhood raises age-old questions for women in virtually every industry. Amongst these are how to navigate work during both pregnancy and the transition back to work after the baby is born, which present...more
Key Takeaways - The PWFA creates a new avenue for pregnant employees to request reasonable accommodations not previously provided under the ADA, PDA or FMLA....more
Many working mothers strive to attain some form of work life balance but may find that their jobs do not provide the flexibility and autonomy that they need to reach this goal. Women often feel like we are spinning one plate...more
Two new federal laws expand the scope of existing protections for pregnant employees and nursing workers. Employers should carefully review existing accommodation and lactation policies and practices to ensure they are...more