The Center for WorkLife Law is an advocacy and research organization at UC Hastings Law that seeks to advance racial, gender, and class equity. At WorkLife Law, we address inequality at a structural level by developing and implementing concrete, evidence-based interventions in schools and workplaces and changing public policy at the state and national levels. We are extremely strategic in how we approach each structural intervention, forging partnerships with grassroots groups and field experts to identify the best change levers to tackle the problem at hand. With our interventions, we aim to produce dramatic changes within a two to five year timeframe. Our main areas of impact are economic security, maternal & child health, education equity, and racial and gender justice in the workplace. Throughout the pandemic, our team has also mobilized a COVID-19 emergency response, applying our legal expertise to help protect workers’ rights during the crisis.
These are just some of the problems that U.S. workers currently face. At the Center for WorkLife Law, we intervene on these problems through both systems-level change and individual interventions.
The Providing Urgent Maternal Protections (“PUMP”) for Nursing Mothers Act expands and strengthens the rights of breastfeeding employees to receive break time and private space for pumping breast milk during the workday. WorkLife Law is proud to have been a leader in the fight to win these new workplace protections for lactating parents. Learn more about the law in this Explainer from the Center for WorkLife Law and partners.
The Providing Urgent Maternal Protections (PUMP) for Nursing Mothers Act and the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) both passed the Senate with bipartisan support today as amendments to the omnibus spending package! This was the last major hurdle for both pieces of legislation and a huge victory for mothers and families. The Center for WorkLife Law’s report Exposed: Discrimination Against Breastfeeding Workers, provided the rallying cry for the PUMP Act by revealing key gaps in existing federal law.
The Protecting Family Caregivers from Discrimination Act (S.5136) which would prohibit workplace discrimination against employees with family caregiving responsibilities, was reintroduced today by U.S. Senator Cory Booker. This legislation has the potential to promote economic, health, and gender equity by ensuring that common life events, like becoming a parent or tending to a sick relative, don’t cause families to fall into poverty.
