?Due to new rights granted under the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) and the Providing Urgent Maternal Protections for Nursing Mothers Act (PUMP Act), employers must display a new version of workplace posters.
The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) recently released two new posters with additional information about the new laws. The posters broadly explain workers’ rights under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) also has updated its “Know Your Rights: Workplace Discrimination Is Illegal” poster with new information about the PWFA, to be displayed starting on June 27.
When the federal Affordable Care Act first mandated pumping breaks in 2010, the law only applied to nonexempt workers under the FLSA. The new FLSA poster describes how those rights now extend to exempt employees, meaning salaried workers who are not entitled to overtime.
“Employers will want to replace the August 2016 version with the April 2023 version,” said Mark Phillis, an attorney with Littler in Pittsburgh.
The new FMLA poster clarifies that while FMLA leave is unpaid, an employee may be required to use employer-provided paid leave at the same time.
Employers can print and post the free versions of FLSA and FMLA posters from the DOL’s website; the EEOC’s website also has a free version of its poster. The posters are available in English and other languages.
Displaying the DOL’s and EEOC’s posters fulfills the notice requirement for employers. Covered employers must display them in a conspicuous place in all of their establishments. There is no size requirement for the posters, but employees must be able to read them easily.
“In addition to physically posting, covered employers are encouraged to post the notice digitally on their websites in a conspicuous location. In most cases, electronic posting supplements the physical posting requirement,” said Donald Butts, owner at Labor Law Compliance Center, a posting solutions company in
Spring, Texas. “In some situations—for example, for employers without a physical location or for employees who telework or work remotely and do not visit the employer’s workplace on a regular basis—it may be the only posting.”
“Posters are part of the notice requirements for many employment laws, and an employer is charged with complying with all notice provisions or [they will be] deemed to not have provided notice to employees of their employment law rights,” said Christine Gantt-Sorenson, an attorney with Haynsworth Sinkler Boyd in Greenville, S.C. “Each offense could result in a penalty of $569. Assuming the employer has more than one location or space where employment compliance posters are posted, this could increase by offense.”
Small Businesses
The PWFA will take effect on June 27 and apply to employers with at least 15 employees.
The PUMP Act took effect in December 2022 with changes to remedies that took effect on April 28. It allows some exemptions for small businesses.
“In limited circumstances, employers with less than 50 employees nationwide may be exempt from the pump time requirements if they can demonstrate that compliance with the pump-at-work provisions for a particular employee would cause an undue hardship. The burden of proving this hardship is on the employer,” said Michelle Phillips, an attorney with Jackson Lewis in White Plains, N.Y.
