Otis Worldwide Fails to Provide Nursing Employees Adequate Lactation Accommodations, Class Action Says

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Otis Worldwide Corporation faces a proposed collective action wherein a former employee claims she was forced to pump breast milk in the bathroom or her car because the company refused to provide her with adequate lactation accommodations.

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The 34-page lawsuit accuses Otis of violating the Providing Urgent Maternal Protections for Nursing Mothers (PUMP) Act, which was passed in 2022 to extend the protections provided to nursing employees by the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).  

Under the PUMP Act, employers are required to provide “reasonable break time” whenever an employee needs to express breast milk while at work for one year after the child’s birth, the suit relays. The federal law also entitles breastfeeding employees to “a place, other than a bathroom, that is shielded from view and free from intrusion from coworkers and the public” that they may use to pump, the case says.

The complaint argues that Otis, an elevator and escalator manufacturing, installation and service company, is well aware of its legal obligations to provide these accommodations to those who request them yet nevertheless denies proper breaks and secure, sanitary spaces for nursing employees at its 300 facilities throughout the country.

According to the filing, the plaintiff began working at Otis’s Florence, South Carolina location in February 2023, roughly three months after she gave birth to her child. When she asked her supervisor where she could pump during her first shift, the woman was informed that she would have to use the bathroom or her car, the filing says. Although there were empty offices in the building where she worked, the plaintiff was told by management that she could not pump in them because the rooms were for customer service representatives and “higher-ups,” the suit claims.

“Unprepared and needing to pump,” the plaintiff became so engorged that she went to the restroom and, because the stalls lacked outlets, had to manually squeeze the milk out of her breasts, the suit explains. After that, the complaint says, the plaintiff typically pumped in her car despite its lack of privacy.

The woman also claims that she was not permitted breaks “as needed” to pump during the workday and instead pumped during her two 10-minute paid breaks, which did not provide not enough time for her to empty her breasts sufficiently, the lawsuit relays.

The complaint says that the plaintiff, as a result, would regularly become engorged at work—which can be painful and lead to infection—and often visibly leak milk through her shirt. In addition, being unable to express milk as needed caused a significant reduction in the plaintiff’s milk supply for her new baby, the filing says.

Overall, Otis’s failure to provide the plaintiff with sufficient lactation accommodations caused her to experience “pain, anguish, discomfort, humiliation, embarrassment, emotional distress, and anxiety” and ultimately drove her to resign from the company in June 2023, the suit says.

“Instead of supporting breastfeeding mothers, Otis’s practices forced those mothers into a Hobson’s choice between using demeaning, unsanitary spaces to express milk, abandoning pumping at work altogether, or quitting their jobs,” the case contends. “Congress clearly declared in the PUMP Act that no mother should have to make such a choice.”

The lawsuit looks to represent any current or former non-executive Otis employees in the United States who were or are expressing breastmilk at any time since December 29, 2022 and who, upon request, have been denied a private, functional space to express breast milk that was not a bathroom each time it was needed, or denied reasonable break times to express milk while at work in the year following the birth of the child.

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