Two bills were sent to the Governor dealing with expanding requirement for workplace lactation requirements.
Our industry worked very hard with the author of AB 1976 (Limón-D; Santa Barbara) which is based on current federal/state law to make sure our industry could comply with the measure that now requires employers’ to provide a room or location for lactation, other than a bathroom.
The author worked with our industry and took significant language to deal with situations where there is no alternative. An example of a workplace that might need such an exemption would be a multi-tenant industrial building where workspaces have no offices. Such space is typically occupied by the following type of businesses: Small manufacturers; distributors; auto repair; landscape service companies; plumbers; HVAC repair companies, etc.
Basically, the bill is trying to make it so new mothers don’t have to lactate at work in a bathroom, but also be sensitive to smaller or unconventional workspaces, and we asked the Governor to sign it, which he did.
Unfortunately, at the same time we had to oppose SB 937 (Wiener; D-San Francisco) as we do not believe it is the best route to go because it would trigger millions of dollars unnecessary construction expenses. This bill would have substantively change existing lactation accommodation requirements. Click here to read the Governor’s veto message.
