Seyfarth Shaw Washington, D.C. attorney and former acting administrator of the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) Wage & Hour Division, Alexander Passantino, was quoted on January 30 in Law360. The article discussed the Fair Labor Standards Act nursing mothers provisions that require employers to provide break times and a private place for nursing mothers to express breast milk, and the confusion among employers due to the lack of final rules implementing the law.

“The guidance the [DOL] gave on whether the break should be paid or not paid is not as clear as it should be because the law itself says it is an unpaid break, and then the [DOL's] guidance references what an employer does with respect to other breaks that are paid,” said Alex.

“Without regulations, no one really understands how exactly the department is saying employers should comply with that provision,” he added.

The DOL has yet to set a date for when it will hand down the final rules, and lawyers say there is room to debate exactly what "constitutes an appropriate space, what conditions make an employer exempt and what circumstances necessitate compensation for the breaks."