How Employers Make It Impossible For Working Women To Breastfeed

After a Walmart employee wrapped up her maternity leave in 2015, she walked into her Carson City, Nevada, store with an electric breast pump in tow. She was intent on breastfeeding her new baby. Walmart was legally obligated to help her do it by providing a private space and enough breaks so she could pump breastmilk. But the slow-moving disaster that unfolded over her first weeks back illustrated the many challenges breastfeeding moms like her still face on the job. 

At first, management told her she would have to pump in the store’s fitting rooms, but there was no outlet for her to plug in her electric pump. She asked if she could use an extension cord and was told it would be a tripping hazard.

Management’s next best solution was to provide her with a manual pump to use in the fitting room. But her body had grown accustomed to the electric pump, and her milk production dropped off sharply when she started using the manual one. The lack of milk left her baby hungry. Her colleagues saw her crying at work and pooled money to buy her the baby formula she apparently couldn’t afford. 

The formula initially made the child sick, forcing the mother to buy a special version for sensitive babies. She was eligible for financial assistance for formula under Nevada’s Women, Infants and Children program for low-income families ― but she was told she needed to turn in the free electric pump she had received through the same public program. (A WIC spokesperson says that a mother would be asked to return a breast pump she’s no longer using, but that benefits could not be withheld if she didn’t.)

Walmart finally did install an electrical outlet so the employee could use her electric pump, but it took more than two months ― a third of the time doctors recommend a mother breastfeed her baby exclusively. And by then it was too late. She’d given up on breastfeeding and started feeding the baby solely formula.

The Walmart worker’s story was among 376 investigations that HuffPost obtained from the federal government through public records requests. The Labor Department is responsible for enforcing the “nursing mothers” provision of the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, which requires employers like Walmart to accommodate workers who want to pump breastmilk. HuffPost sought any cases involving a potential violation of that law and received investigations from across the country, stretching from 2010 to 2018. The agency redacted names and identifying characteristics of workers in the files, but they provide insight into the kinds of problems new moms face while pumping on the job. 

The American Academy of Pediatrics has promoted breastfeeding as the healthiest start for both infants and their mothers. The share of infants who are breastfed increased from 73.8% to 83.2% between 2004 and 2015, as more doctors in the U.S. encourage mothers to feed their babies exclusively breast milk for six months and continue nursing for a year or more. But the reality is that the United States does not guarantee paid leave by law, and many mothers end up going back to work in less than two weeks. For those who want to breastfeed, that means most have to pump ― every 2-3 hours throughout the workday, and for as long as it takes to fully empty their breasts, which can take 15-30 minutes.

The Labor Department records make clear that many companies still break a law meant to protect a mother’s right to pump at work, including companies that tout themselves as mother-friendly. Employers broke the law in 255 of the cases HuffPost obtained, or 68%. In slightly more than half the cases, employers violated the requirement that they provide adequate space for pumping. In roughly a third, they violated the requirement that they provide sufficient break time. In nearly one out of every five cases, employers ran afoul of both provisions. A complaint from a worker prompted the vast majority of the investigations. 

The hurdles to pumping at work took a financial, emotional and physical toll on many of the women. HuffPost identified five cases in which workers developed mastitis, a painful inflammation that can come with swelling, a burning sensation, fever and chills. Mastitis can result from skipping pumping sessions and milk backing up in the breast. In one example, a worker at a pancake house developed an infection but worried she would lose her job if she spoke up ― a fear common in many of the cases. 

Employers illegally retaliated against workers for asserting their rights in 22 cases, including the Walmart case in Carson City. The woman in that complaint said she lost her lunch breaks after she started pumping; she also said she was told to clock out when she needed to pump, even though another nursing mother was allowed to do so on the clock. In the end, Walmart agreed to pay the woman $217 in back wages. 

The investigator handling that case noted that the ordeal not only cost the family money but left the baby in pain due to the switch to formula. The investigator wrote that “equitable relief” should require Walmart to reimburse the woman for the formula she paid for out of pocket, since she “would not have had to purchase formula to begin with” had Walmart accommodated her as the law required.

Randy Hargrove, a Walmart spokesperson, said the company has a corporate-wide policy in place meant to assure employees can pump.

“This incident took place more than four years ago and our associate received all of her entitled backpay,” Hargrove said. “We welcome nursing mothers to breastfeed in our store, and we have processes in place to help ensure that our stores are accommodating to them, whether it’s our customers or associates. We take compliance with the law seriously and if there’s a misstep, we want to know about it so we can address it right away.”

While many other cases were not so egregious, they shared similar themes, particularly in low-wage fields like retail and food service where workers struggle to find a clean, private space for pumping. Many of them are sent to restrooms ― in some cases, even public ones ― despite the fact that the law explicitly says restrooms are unacceptable because they’re unsanitary. 

Other women were told to pump in their manager’s office or a meeting room without locks, where they were walked in on repeatedly. Many had to pump in view of security cameras. In two separate cases, restaurant workers were instructed to pump behind the bread racks, leaving them partly visible to colleagues and customers.

Those who do find an appropriate space often don’t receive the time they need to fully empty their breasts. A McDonald’s worker was yelled at and ordered to return to work before she was done pumping. A Family Dollar worker asked for more time to pump and got demoted to part-time. A spa employee was required to sign a piece of paper agreeing that she wouldn’t take any more breaks. Her inability to pump caused her to leak milk from her breasts while she worked.

‘A Constant Struggle’

The nursing mothers law was one of the few pieces of the Affordable Care Act that both Democrats and Republicans could agree on. Pro-life conservatives who otherwise denounced former President Barack Obama’s 2010 landmark health care law joined their liberal colleagues in supporting the breastfeeding provisions. The thinking was simple: If a mother wants to breastfeed, she should still be able to work for a living.

The law states that for up to a year after the child’s birth, an employer must provide the worker with a space to pump that’s shielded from view and “reasonable break time” to pump ― although what’s reasonable is not defined and can vary from one woman to the next. The employer doesn’t have to pay the worker for that time unless it is break time the worker is normally paid for. Employers with fewer than 50 workers can be exempted from the law if they can show it would be an “undue hardship.”

An analysis of Labor Department filings shows that the number of nursing mother cases has generally been rising, perhaps because more women have become aware of their rights under the law and are filing complaints. Among the cases released to HuffPost, only 42 were investigated in 2011, the year after the law was enacted. More than 70 were investigated in 2017. 

The most common industry for worker complaints was retail, which accounted for more than one out of every five investigations. The cases revealed violations by a litany of household names: BestBuy, JCPenney, Dollar General, Lowes, Toys R Us, Costco and Kroger, among others. Walmart had the most violations of any private company, with six, but it is also the largest private-sector employer in the U.S., with 1.5 million workers. 

Research has shown that babies in low-income homes are less likely to be breastfed. The investigations help explain why. Not only do low-wage women typically have to return to work sooner after having a child, many of them also have a difficult time getting breaks from their employers to pump.

A worker at a Family Dollar store in Scranton, Pennsylvania, asked for only one pumping break each day, but couldn’t get it from her managers. She “spent the majority of her time working alone and there was no coverage from co-workers to provide her an opportunity to take a break,” the investigator wrote. When she did get a break, she had to pump in a stock room where both a vendor and a co-worker walked in on her. A Family Dollar spokesperson declined to comment on the case, citing privacy reasons. 

An employee at a Jared Vault jewelry store in Oklahoma City wasn’t given a private space to pump, so she often clocked out and drove home when she needed to do it. The arrangement was not only inconvenient but cost her wages. Another woman who worked at a cosmetics shop in a Miami mall was told to use the public restroom, where the lack of privacy and heavy foot traffic made it difficult. The aggravation of dealing with her boss and the mall’s management over the issue discouraged her from breastfeeding. “Little by little [she] pumped less and less,” until eventually she gave up, the case file states. The woman filed a complaint against the employer “to avoid this from happening to anyone else in the future.”

Restaurants made up more than 10% of the cases, including small eateries and large chains like McDonald’s, Subway, Olive Garden, Cracker Barrel and Buffalo Wild Wings. An Outback Steakhouse was cited in 2017 for failing to provide a worker with a space safe from the view of co-workers. The investigator found that the restaurant’s parent company, Bloomin’ Brands, did not have a clear corporate-wide policy for pumping at work, even after the law had been in place for roughly seven years. The company did not respond when asked if that had changed. 

In many restaurant cases, workers who asked for time to pump were told there was no one to cover for them. Managers at IHOP diners broke the law in two separate cases by denying servers breaks. One worker at an IHOP in Oklahoma said her general manager declined her requests for even a few minutes to pump, telling her curtly, “not right now,” or “later.” She eventually developed mastitis. 

A worker at an IHOP in Arkansas told her boss she would need to pump for 15 minutes roughly every two hours once she returned to work after having her baby. Over the next 20 days, she received just two breaks and was told to pump behind a bread rack. Her bosses told her nobody could cover for her, especially on the weekends. She quickly gave up on breastfeeding. An IHOP spokesperson said the two locations that broke the law were run by franchisees.

The breastfeeding protections apply only to employees who are covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act ― the same workers with overtime protections ― while excluding managers, professional employees and whole other categories of workers. That means it is predominantly hourly employees who get the protections; women who earn a regular salary above $23,660 and perform certain job duties are exempt from the law. Many white-collar women face the same hurdles to pumping as retail workers, but their struggles wouldn’t be found in the Labor Department’s investigations. 

While the cases skewed toward low-wage jobs, the field with the second-most complaints after retail was hospitals and healthcare facilities, which accounted for 62 of the 376 cases. Nurses may be more familiar with the law and willing to file complaints, but they also have just as hard a time getting breaks as many retail workers. Even hospitals with “baby-friendly” designations due to their breastfeeding services failed to provide their own employees with the time needed to pump. 

An investigator found that nurses at a Bellevue, Washington, hospital couldn’t find time to pump “due to the nature of the business.” One employee there ended up with a breast infection. A time study performed at a Michigan hospital revealed that nurses spent the bulk of their 15-minute breaks traveling to and from the lactation room, which was on another floor, leaving them with only five minutes to actually pump. One hospital worker called pumping at work a “constant struggle.” Nursing homes and home care settings accounted for another 19 cases.

More than 40 cases involved government workers, and the U.S. Postal Service had the most violations of any public-sector employer, with eight. The agency has a workforce of half a million employees, many with union protections that other workers do not enjoy ― perhaps making them more comfortable raising grievances over pumping. 

One postal worker in Southern California wasn’t given enough breaks and had to sneak pumping sessions in the bathroom. Her breasts apparently hurt so badly that she pumped breastmilk into the toilet to relieve the pressure. Lack of a clean, available space also led her to pump while seated on the locker room floor. Her supervisor gave her a seven-day suspension for taking too many breaks. The Labor Department concluded the discipline amounted to illegal retaliation. The Postal Service removed it from the employee’s record. 

A Postal Service spokesperson said the agency does not comment on individual personnel matters, but “we take seriously our obligation to follow Department of Labor guidance” on the nursing mothers law. 

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