Before leaving office, Governor Chris Christie signed several bills into laws. One of these enacted bills, AB 2294, amends the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination to ban discrimination against breastfeeding employees. Employers cannot refuse to hire, discharge, or discriminate against a breastfeeding employee in compensation and other terms, conditions or privileges of employment.
Employers are also required to provide breastfeeding employees with reasonable accommodations, unless these impose an undue hardship on the business. The accommodation may include reasonable break time each day and a private location, other than a toilet stall, to express milk. To determine whether an accommodation would impose an undue hardship on the business, the following factors must be considered:
- overall size of the business with respect to the number of employees;
- number and type of facilities;
- size of budget;
- type of operations;
- nature and cost of the accommodation needed; and
- the extent to which the accommodation would involve a waiver of an essential requirement of a job as opposed to a tangential or non-business necessity requirement.
Employers must incorporate the new requirements into their policies immediately. CPC will continue to monitor this new legislation.