Chapter 14. Employee Breaks
Sec. 1. As used in this chapter, “employer” means a person or entity that employs twenty-five (25) or more employees.
Sec. 2. (a) To the extent reasonably possible, an employer shall provide a private location, other than a toilet stall, where an employee can express the employee’s breast milk in privacy during any period away from the employee’s assigned duties.
(b) To the extent reasonably possible, an employer shall:
(1) provide a refrigerator or other cold storage space for keeping milk that has been expressed; or
(2) allow the employee to provide the employee’s own portable cold storage device for keeping milk that has been expressed until the end of the employee’s work day.
(c) Except in cases of willful misconduct, gross negligence, or bad faith, an employer is not liable for any harm caused by or arising from either of the following that occur on the employer’s premises:
(1) The expressing of an employee’s breast milk.
(2) The storage of expressed milk.

Inside INdiana Business quotes Senator Simpson as saying:

This legislation benefits not only mothers and their children. It also benefits employers because women with infants are the fastest growing section of the labor force and breastfeeding typically causes lower healthcare costs for the mother and child. I’m pleased to see the governor agreed and signed it into law.

Post from: Breastfeeding 1-2-3

In the 2007 Regular Session, three different forms of proposed breastfeeding legislation have been introduced. If House Bill 2248 is enacted, the law would read:

Breast feeding is an important, basic act of nurturing that is protected in the interests of maternal and child health. A mother may breast feed a child in any location, public or private, where the mother and child are otherwise authorized to be.

Senate Bill 7 would require the establishment of a program to encourage and recognize breastfeeding-friendly employers and would allow breastfeeding mothers to be excused from jury duty. House Bill 2244 is the whole package. It provides the breastfeeding protection described above, it clarifies that a mother breastfeeding a child is not engaging in lewd conduct or violating nudity laws and is entitled to an expectation of privacy, it allows breastfeeding mothers to be excused from jury duty and it establishes the breastfeeding-friendly employer program. For more information on how to support West Virginia’s Child’s Right to Nurse Act, click here.

Indiana

The Lactivist reports that Indiana State Senator Vi Simpson has introduced Senate Bill 225 which would require employers to provide reasonable paid breaks for employees to express breast milk, to provide a private location in which to pump, and to provide a refrigerator for cold storage of expressed breast milk. That law is much stronger than the largely symbolic law recently passed in Oklahoma.

To contact your Indiana state legislator to urge passage of the bill, see this listing.

Post from: Breastfeeding 1-2-3