New Jersey Expands Protections for Breastfeeding Employees
1/8/2018
Author: ADP Admin/Wednesday, February 20, 2019/Categories: News
Newsletter Article Template
Overview: New Jersey Expands Protections for Breastfeeding Employees
Effective Date: January 1, 2018
Overview: The New Jersey Law Against Discrimination has been expanded to include breastfeeding, expressing milk, and related medical conditions. The law also requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations for breastfeeding women, including reasonable break time and a suitable location to express milk in private.
Details:
New Jersey has enacted amendments to the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination (“LAD”) to provide protections for women who are breastfeeding. Under these amendments, an employer of one or more employees is prohibited from treating, for employment-related purposes, an employee who the employer knows, or should know, is affected by pregnancy or breastfeeding, in a manner less favorable than the treatment of others not affected by pregnancy or breastfeeding, but similar in their ability or inability to work. Previously, the LAD provided protection on the basis of pregnancy only. Accordingly, New Jersey employers with one or more employees must now extend anti-discrimination protections for lactation.
Further, where previously the LAD required an employer to make reasonable accommodations in the workplace available to a woman affected by pregnancy only, now employers must accommodate both pregnancy and breastfeeding. Women who must be accommodated include any employee affected by pregnancy and breastfeeding, which means pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding or expressing milk for breastfeeding or medical conditions related to pregnancy, childbirth, or breastfeeding, including recovery from childbirth.
With respect to lactation accommodations, “reasonable accommodation" includes reasonable break time each day and a suitable room or other location with privacy, other than a toilet stall, in close proximity to the work area for the employee to express breast milk for the child, unless the employer can demonstrate that providing the accommodation would be an undue hardship on the employer's business operations.
The Act is codified at N.J. Stat. Ann. § 10:5-12.
Call to Action: Review and revise, if necessary, workplace policies regarding breastfeeding and breaks to determine whether amendments are needed in light of the law’s new requirements. Ensure covered employees are provided a location to express milk that meets the law’s requirements. Train Human Resources and supervisory staff on the law’s requirements.
Please contact your Relationship Manager or Service Team with any questions.
*Produced in partnership with Littler Mendelson, P.C.