Staples Co-Founder takes brave stand...Against Breastfeeding Mothers

[Nova]

Kimberly and I are agreeing much too often. Does this mean the Mayans were right?

 

[keeponsearching]

I am actually confused about what we are talking about, breast feeding while out shopping or pumping at work????

I can remember working at a bank, and saw an employee crying because the area she had to pump was the stock room with no heat. Maybe companies should consider what ifs.. If a mom has a baby they should at least have a room prepared for when it happens. I am not saying build a room. But find an area, and verbalize that would be one of the uses for the room. Just my opinion.

 

[Lanie]

How much money does it cost to set aside a certain room, that is already there, for the nursing/pumping mother to use?

Not everyone is going to just have an extra room laying around. In order to be cost effective, most companies, other than those who get bailed out by the government, are going to build only what they need. To add an extra space is going to cost $$ per square foot, the amount varying depending on what area of the country a person is in.

Speaking for myself personally, my office is rental space. I do have a back room, but it is crammed full of paperwork and files from my business. In order for me to meet this requirement, I would have to move that into a storage unit, @ $45 a month, and also run the risk of rodents invading it and destroying records the government requires me to keep.

Why is it okay for me to be out $45 a month? Please don't disregard the first part of my last post, the part where I had four children and I breastfed every one of them (and I'll add I breastfed them full term, not just the first 6 weeks.) I didn't expect someone else who had nothing to do with my children to be out money for me to be able to do that. With my first child, I worked, and I used my breaks to go to the bathroom and pump myself out.

IMO, this comes down to the difference between entitlement and personal responsibility.

 

[Nova]

I am actually confused about what we are talking about, breast feeding while out shopping or pumping at work????

I can remember working at a bank, and saw an employee crying because the area she had to pump was the stock room with no heat. Maybe companies should consider what ifs.. If a mom has a baby they should at least have a room prepared for when it happens. I am not saying build a room. But find an area, and verbalize that would be one of the uses for the room. Just my opinion.

If I understand the posts above, that's all the law requires. It doesn't require anyone to build a separate room.

I don't know about everyone else, but I don't WANT a breastfeeding mother confined to a toilet. I don't think it's safe for her or the baby.

Like Family Leave laws, requiring a space for breastfeeding is just one more accommodation we have to make if we are going to have a society where mothers work (and let's face it, many families can't survive otherwise). If we want our society to survive into the next generation, then we have to accommodate parents. Employers need to consider it part of the cost of doing business.

 

[ThoughtFox]

Not everyone is going to just have an extra room laying around. In order to be cost effective, most companies, other than those who get bailed out by the government, are going to build only what they need. To add an extra space is going to cost $$ per square foot, the amount varying depending on what area of the country a person is in.

Speaking for myself personally, my office is rental space. I do have a back room, but it is crammed full of paperwork and files from my business. In order for me to meet this requirement, I would have to move that into a storage unit, @ $45 a month, and also run the risk of rodents invading it and destroying records the government requires me to keep.

Why is it okay for me to be out $45 a month? Please don't disregard the first part of my last post, the part where I had four children and I breastfed every one of them (and I'll add I breastfed them full term, not just the first 6 weeks.) I didn't expect someone else who had nothing to do with my children to be out money for me to be able to do that. With my first child, I worked, and I used my breaks to go to the bathroom and pump myself out.

IMO, this comes down to the difference between entitlement and personal responsibility.

Your back room sounds like a fire hazard anyway. Why not clean it out? Maybe you don't need to store all that stuff - donate it to charity! :cow:

I don't like the idea of pumping in a bathroom. It's not sanitary and there's no real privacy if someone can walk in on you anytime they want.

 

[Lanie]

You've missed the point of the article.

"Tom Stemberg, co-founder of mega-office supply chain Staples is questioning an Obamacare provision that discourages job creation by dictating employers funnel their capital into lactation chambers."

It's not anti breast feeding. And when was it mandated that mothers have the right to bring their child to work? I assume these women would have to 'punch out' on the time clock for each feeding and diaper change, which would soon evolve into a 'right' that the employer must pay for. You know it's true. Or he could just fire them.

BBM

EXACTLY. I'm a woman, and I'm pretty loud mouthed about women's rights. However, it is a fact of life women have the pregnancies, women go through birth, and women have the ability to breastfeed, not men. Men did not design it this way, and it's nobody's fault, it's just a biological fact. It's also not employers fault, and yet they are supposed to pay for it, and I don't understand that, and I also think it's unconstitutional.

 

[Lanie]

Your back room sounds like a fire hazard anyway. Why not clean it out? Maybe you don't need to store all that stuff - donate it to charity! :cow:

I don't like the idea of pumping in a bathroom. It's not sanitary and there's no real privacy if someone can walk in on you anytime they want.

BBM
:floorlaugh::floorlaugh::floorlaugh::floorlaugh::floorlaugh::floorlaugh:

If only I could. Unfortunately, the IRS says I have to keep all this stuff for seven years. My business generates five to seven file boxes of paperwork every year I have to keep. I don't think Goodwill is interested in my paperwork, but I'll keep it in mind for a tax write off.

No, a bathroom is not ideal, but you know what, I had the child, I chose to breastfeed, and I had to work. That's my problem, and IMO I don't have the right to make it someone else's.

 

[wfgodot]

I don't see choosing to work, have babies, and breast-feed as "problems." The fact men "did not design it this way" does not lessen their responsibilities to the process. Procreation continues the species; naturally, allowances must be made.

 

[Emma Peel]

Well, maybe Tom could just claim that *advertiser censored* are against his religion and apply for a religious exemption.

 

[Gardenlady]

Not everyone is going to just have an extra room laying around. In order to be cost effective, most companies, other than those who get bailed out by the government, are going to build only what they need. To add an extra space is going to cost $$ per square foot, the amount varying depending on what area of the country a person is in.

You don't need to add extra space. Apparently even just hanging a curtain, or putting up a divider in a corner is fine.

Why is it okay for me to be out $45 a month? Please don't disregard the first part of my last post, the part where I had four children and I breastfed every one of them (and I'll add I breastfed them full term, not just the first 6 weeks.) I didn't expect someone else who had nothing to do with my children to be out money for me to be able to do that. With my first child, I worked, and I used my breaks to go to the bathroom and pump myself out.

IMO, this comes down to the difference between entitlement and personal responsibility.

Why? Because hopefully you're a fair and at least somewhat understanding employer, who realizes that just because you didn't get something doesn't make that fair practice. Because you realize that breast feeding is important, and it's a very SMALL inconvenience for you to do this, but a HUGE boon to both your employee and her child, not to mention the overall benefit to society when babies are nursed.

Or how about just Because you're just a decent human being, maybe?

And failing all that, if you have less than 50 employees, you can claim a hardship exemption. But I'm still not buying that moving a divider, or putting up a screen or curtain, for two 20 min periods during the workday, is a hardship for any business.

 

[Emma Peel]

Dear Tom,

I have another thought regarding employer accommodations for lactating working mothers (who are back at work 3 weeks post-delivery b/c their pregnancy leave benefit has expired):


This is what happens when women make the rules. Get used to it.


:heart:
Emma been-there-done-that

 

[Kimberlyd125]

WT?!
They belong to HER.
She needs to RUN away quickly. Jealous of a baby?

I know I make light of the boobies, babies and bf topic. But, I can't imagine the outrage. Are we going to have to burkas next to hide babies and cover ankles because, someone has a foot fetish?
I hope we progress instead regress as nation.

No need, he's dead.
Suicide.

 

[Kimberlyd125]

Kimberly and I are agreeing much too often. Does this mean the Mayans were right?

Chicken Little was right! The sky is falling!!!!

 

[Velouria]

Kimberly and I are agreeing much too often. Does this mean the Mayans were right?

I don't know, but I'm stocking up on bottled water and canned goods just in case.