Posted on April 28th, 2020
Find below a complete transcript of this video
What’s up fellow entrepreneurs its John Fagerholm again, and today I want to revisit, the new lactation policy rules, implemented by California starting January one.
I made a previous video where I kind of glossed over all of the new laws that I thought were sort of common sense. but as I re-read the lactation when I thought, well, wait a minute, maybe I should, talk about this one because there’s some parts of it that may not be common sense.
So, I’ll read off what the lactation laws are or the new laws are, and then I’ll, express what I think is not common sense so that, employers can figure out what they need to do next.
All right, so let me start off by reading what they are. So the new lactation accommodation, rules are under SB one 42 and it amends, um, the labor code sections 10 30, 10 31, 10, 33 and 10 34.
So in essence, there was already a lactation laws in place, but now here’s an amendment to them. Um, based on SB one 42.
So all employers, not just employers with a certain number of employees must provide a room other than a bathroom or other location to privately express milk.
So that’s to me is one of the common sense things. Okay. So, lactation rooms must be safe and clean and free of hazardous materials under some OSHA rules. But again, that’s one of the things I thought was common sense.
It must contain a surface to place breast pump and personal items have a place to sit and have access to electricity or alternative devices of power. So again, common sense, right? must provide a sink with running water and a refrigerator or alternative cooling device suitable for storing milk near employees workspace.
So this is the one that wouldn’t be common sense to me. Obviously the, the running water. Yes. Um, the, the, the refrigerator, that’s the one that I didn’t even think about a cooling device.
So now that I see it, it does make sense. So the penalty is a hundred dollars per day per violation.
It could get relatively expensive. So be cognizant of that. All right. Now here’s the part that wasn’t common sense and when I reread it, I thought I better mention this because, you know, any employer would think, yeah, these are the lactation policies, you know, here’s all the accommodations, do what you need.
The part that employers may not be implementing, which to be implementing as part of the new code is there must be a written lactation accommodation policy that includes statement of employee’s right to request lactation accommodation process to request the accommodation.
Employer’s obligation to provide a written response regarding denial of requests for lactation accommodation. By the way, I never recommend that you deny that statement of employee’s right to file a complaint with the labor commissioner policy must be included in the employee handbook.
Policy must be provided upon hire and upon request or inquiry into parent leave. So it’s the written part that isn’t common sense.
I think if you don’t have that, then some sinister lawyer can claim that you didn’t have a lactation policy at all or one that followed the code, which then could get you that $100 a day violation.
So anyway, that’s the part that I want to talk about and I don’t know why, but, uh, in the middle of the night last night, I woke up thinking about this. I had just read it and it was like, Oh, wait a minute.
This is not as common sense as I initially just thought in sort of a brush, the lactation accommodation. The new law just sorta swept it under the rug saying, yeah, you’ll figure it out. But once I read it and then thought about it, it wasn’t so common sense.
So anyway, that’s all for today. So until next time, be productive.
