Wednesday, March 8, 2017

Lactation Rooms Could Soon Become a Requirement for All San Francisco Employers



Yet another San Francisco incentive for employers to not hire women of child-bearing age.

ABC 7 San Francisco reports:
Under the new proposal, employers would have to have a lactation room for breastfeeding employees.

On Tuesday, San Francisco Supervisor Katy Tang introduced legislation setting minimum standards for lactation accommodations.

Lactation rooms cannot be a bathroom and must be near the mom's work area. It must be clean, have a seat and table with close access to a sink, electricity and a refrigerator.
Surprise, there is a crony lactation station company lurking in the background:
 Some employers may see complying as a burden, but the CEO of "Day One Baby", a company that sets up lactation stations for businesses like Microsoft, tells ABC7 News her clients understands the benefit.
"To get a more productive workforce and also create retention," said Esther Kestenbaum, with "Day One Baby".
Of course, if creating a more productive workforce and creating retention outweighed the costs, dear Esther wouldn't have to support the SF government forcing this on employers.

And what next?

Perhaps nice quiet legislated hangover rooms. That would "create retention"!

-RW 

6 comments:

  1. My wife used this high-tech thing called a shawl. Worked great- and no coercion to boot!

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  2. The American mentality today: if I think it's good, require it. If I think it's bad, criminalize it. Freedom? That's just an obsolete, extinct notion pushed by stuffy dead white males long ago.

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  3. If the employer is forced to have a lactation room regardless to the demographics or reproductive state of their workforce, then why would this be an additional incentive to not hire a woman of childbearing age?

    I could see it as an additional incentive to not be an employer in San Francisco. I could even see it as a trigger for a "sunk cost" mentality. "Well, better get some pregnant employees so this isn't wasted space." Sure, all the other incentives to not hire a reproducing employee remain, but this regulation isn't one of them. This is closer to the excessive infrastructure for the disabled which doesn't get used enough to justify its installation.

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    Replies
    1. Re: Bill,

      --- then why would this be an additional incentive to not hire a woman of childbearing age? ---

      "Mr. Szlizlaff, I'm going to sue you because that lactation room you build for us lactating women doesn't have the appropriate type of chair that us lactating women need. You have been served."

      That's why.

      Delete
  4. I'd vote for the hangover room.

    ReplyDelete