Getting Pumped for Health Care Reform

Fifteen years ago when my son was an infant  his mom wanted to keep feeding him breast milk.  She was working at the time, and we bought a little pump for the purpose.  Unfortunately, she was afraid her employer would think it was weird, and so she had to sneak around as if having a cigarette in the restroom.

Women will not have to sneak around any longer to express milk. As part of the new health care bill the Fair Labor Standards Act was amended so that employers with more than 50 employees are now mandated to provide certain benefits to women who wish to breastfeed or pump.

First, employers must provide "reasonable breaks" for women to express milk for infants.  The breaks must be reasonable both in terms of time, and in terms of number of breaks.  Second, the employer must give women a private location in which to express milk.  This private location has to a location other than a restroom.  Although the breaks must be given, there is no requirement that the breaks be paid.

Several states, including California, Colorado, Illinois, and New York already have breastfeeding laws on the books.  The new FLSA amendment provides that if an employee resides in a state with a more generous law (for example, paid breastfeeding breaks), then the employee is entitled to whichever law is more generous, state or federal.

In the end expressing milk was too much for my then-wife.  It was less an issue of privacy and more an issue of the hassle of pumping, preserving, and transporting the stuff home.  It's a comfort to know, however, that those who want to express themselves can.  La Leche League rejoice.

Is Supreme Court Nominee Kagan Good for Unions?

The first question my grandparents always had on any public policy issue was always "is it good for the Jews?"  I have the same question for Obama's policies and nominees, replacing the word "Jews" with "union."  Obama's pick to replace Justice Stevens on the Supreme Court, Elana Kagan, is definitely good for the Jews, bringing the Court's complement of Jewish judges to three.  But is she good for unions?

So far it's hard to tell.  Kagan has never been a judge, so there are no written opinions to go by.  And, she does not have other writings  outlining her philosophy on labor, or any other issues for that matter.  She is, as some have noted, a bit of a cipher.  Labor leaders are cautiously supporting Kagan, probably hoping for the best.

One hopeful sign comes from the Village Voice, http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/archives/2010/05/elena_kagan_and.php,which points out that Kagan's brother, Marc Kagan, was a labor leader and reformer in the Transit Workers Union in New York.  Kagan's brother, who is now a teacher, recently wrote a letter in the Civil Service weekly Chief Leader extolling the virtues of unions in fiery, passionate language:

"Here's a heretical thought: the actual purpose of unions is to improve workers' lives by challenging the free market: to win a higher than "market" wage, to make it hard for the employer to change working conditions or fire the higher-paid worker. We shouldn't hide these ideas under a rock like we're ashamed of them; just the opposite. When unions won the 8-hour day, or the weekend, or pension plans, unions defended the idea that working people's lives and rights were socially more important than employers' profits and rights. And we said that those victories would tend to spread, even into nonunionized sectors, and generally make people's lives better. And that was true, for decades.

"Today we are playing this movie backwards. As people in the nonunion sector have faced big roll-backs in wages and benefits, we hear them complain that unionized workers should also "give back." It's an indication that we have, at least temporarily, lost the battle of ideas in this country, that we can't successfully explain to our fellow workers that it is in their interests too if we are able to hold the line somewhere, rather than engage in a frantic race to the bottom."

This type of rhetoric is rarely aired in public these days.  While we certainly can't expect Kagan to publicly embrace such sentiment, at least we know that she has family members who understand unions, embrace unions, and are passionate advocates of the labor movement.