Employment

Attacks on public employees’ rights to collectively bargain directly threaten working women and the public services they provide. Collective bargaining helps ensure that jobs that jobs that provide important community services also provide decent wages, benefits, and working conditions.  Women who are members of unions or covered by union contracts earn more than their non-unionized peers and experience a smaller gender wage gap.  Collective bargaining has helped women achieve economic security for themselves and their families.  In workplaces across the country, collective bargaining has allowed women to obtain better working conditions.  Moreover, when workers in positions like nursing or child care achieve better working conditions, this often benefits the women and families who rely on the services they provide, by reducing employee turnover and enhancing their ability to do their job.

Below is the National Women’s Law Center’s response to the Department of Labor’s request for comments regarding the interpretation of Section 4207 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.  Section 4207 requires certain employers to provide reasonable break time and a place for nursing mothers to express breast milk for one year after their child’s birth. The Center urges the Department to clarify which workers are covered under the provision, as well as how the provision treats both paid and unpaid break time used to express milk.  The Center also asks the Department to address what constitutes “reasonable break time”; provide additional guidance regarding the provision of break time and space for employees working off-site; and interpret narrowly the “undue hardship” exemption available to employers that excuses them from Section 4207’s requirements.  In addition, the Center urges the Department to clarify the applicable notice standard to ensure that women know about and may exercise their right to take breaks to express milk.  Finally, the Center encourages the Department to make clear its intent to enforce vigorously employees’ rights under Section 4207 and to offer compliance assistance to employers.