The PUMP Act: What Every Working Parent Should Know

If you are a new mother returning to work and you need to pump breast milk during the workday, federal law is on your side. The PUMP for Nursing Mothers Act, signed into law in December 2022, strengthened a protection that has existed in some form since 2010. In plain terms, the law requires employers to give nursing employees reasonable break time to express breast milk, as often as the employee needs to, for up to one year after the child's birth. Just as importantly, the employer must provide a place to do it, and that place cannot be a bathroom. The law applies to employers of all sizes, and it covers nearly every worker in America, including teachers, nurses, restaurant workers, farmworkers, and millions of others who were left out of the earlier version of the law.

The space requirement is where many employers fall short. The law does not allow an employer to simply point to a restroom stall or an open break room. The space must be functional for pumping, it must be shielded from view, and it must be free from intrusion by coworkers and the public. That means a door that closes, protection from people walking in, and genuine privacy while the employee is pumping. The break time requirement is equally practical. Pumping needs vary from person to person, and the law recognizes that. An employer cannot ration breaks to a fixed number or cut them short when the restaurant, classroom, or office gets busy. And if an employee is not completely relieved of work duties during a pumping break, that time must be paid as hours worked.

What makes the PUMP Act different from the old law is enforcement. Before 2023, an employee whose employer refused to provide time or space had almost no way to recover damages in court. Today, employees can file a lawsuit and seek meaningful monetary remedies, and it is illegal for an employer to retaliate against an employee for asserting these rights. There is one procedural wrinkle worth knowing: for most space violations, the employee must notify the employer that the space is inadequate and give the employer ten days to fix it before filing suit. If you believe your employer is denying you the time or the privacy the law requires, document what is happening, put your concerns in writing, and talk to an employment attorney about your options.