Pump and get dumped

The Ohio Supreme Court decided in a 5-1 ruling on Thursday that Totes/Isotoner was legally allowed to fire a breastfeeding mother for taking an extra break to pump.

When LaNisa Allen was hired as a temporary warehouse worker for the outerwear company in West Chester, Ohio, she informed them that she needed to pump her breast milk and requested a private area with an outlet to do so. Management told her she could sit in the restroom and pump at her lunch break. Even though she fed her 5 month old before her 6 a.m. shift, she found herself engorged, in pain and leaking before her scheduled 11 a.m. lunch break. So -- as anyone who has experienced breast engorgement, or anyone who has experienced an organ about to explode, can understand -- she snuck off to the restroom for an unscheduled break at around 10 a.m. to empty her breasts. With milk for her son. To eat. Just clarifying.

According to the Ohio Supreme Court Web site, approximately two weeks later, one of her supervisors came into the restroom and told her that she was breaking the rules. She had to wait an hour for her break. Later that day, Allen requested that her 10 minute break at 8 a.m. be extended to 15 minutes. She asked for 5 minutes. 1-2-3-4-5 minutes. They said no. Actually, they didn't just say no, they fired her.

For insubordination, naturally.

Allen then sued the company, knowing that Ohio's civil rights laws prohibit discrimination based on gender AND discrimination based on medical conditions that arise from pregnancy or childbirth.

Here's the kicker -- The trial court found that lactating is not a condition arising from pregnancy or childbirth. Please, take a minute to let that sink in. Are you getting this? Here's what the court said in the original case:

“Allen gave birth over five months prior to her termination from [Isotoner]. Pregnant [women] who give birth and chose not to breastfeed or pump their breasts do not continue to lactate for five months. Thus, Allen’s condition of lactating was not a condition relating to pregnancy but rather a condition related to breastfeeding. Breastfeeding discrimination does not constitute gender discrimination. See Derungs v. Wal-Mart Stores Inc., 374 F.3d 428, 439 (6th Cir. 2004).”

Oh yes they did.

How is breastfeeding discrimination not gender discrimination? California would agree with me. And lactating is most definitely a condition arising from childbirth. Those who are not pregnant and who do not give birth DO NOT randomly start producing milk. Yes, some women choose not to breastfeed. Some women CHOOSE to take a path that is biologically, evolutionarily, unnatural and feed their children with an imitation of breast milk; a man-made substance that strives to be as healthy as breast milk but fails. This, of course, is a different issue. There's an entire movement out there teaching women that the benefits of breastfeeding are unmatched -- for the baby, the mother and the country as a whole. There's a movement to increase the number of breastfeeding mothers, backed by huge, heaping, monstrous piles of studies. You can hear the shouts reverberating coast to coast: Breast is best!

Except for the lower-income factory worker who has no choice but to work. Then it's, Well you could have CHOSEN n0t to breastfeed, you know.

Come to think of it, maybe these women didn't CHOOSE to wean their child. I'm sure many women who opt out of breastfeeding do so from the corner in which they're trapped. On one side, society is closing in with torches and signs and angry, judgmental slogans. On the other, society has its greedy hand outstretched: Rent, food, gas, diapers. Who has the luxury to live on one income? Definitely not lower-income factory workers. Add that to the inflexible, unsympathetic, hard-headed, discriminatory companies like Totes that make it near-impossible to maintain a milk supply, and it's no wonder that many women crumple in defeat.

Here's the argument: Companies don't have to tolerate pumping because breastfeeding isn't a result of childbirth because many women choose not to breastfeed because companies don't tolerate pumping.

Woah.

And besides the logistical mind-screw, do any of these judges know the unbelievable pain of engorgement? Allen should have asked her supervisor to chug a bottle or two of water, just enough to cause that aching, bulging, my-bladder-is-going-to-burst feeling. Then, when he (or she, whoever) goes to the bathroom say, Not so fast. You have to wait an hour. It's just an hour though -- no big deal.

Justice Maureen O'Connor (one of the three women on the bench) and Chief Justice Thomas Moyer agreed that lactation is, in fact, linked to pregnancy, but Allen's termination technically wasn't discrimination.

The one lonely dissenting opinion came from the male Justice Pfeifer:

"Ohio’s working mothers who endure the uncomfortable sacrifice of privacy that almost necessarily accompanies their attempt to remain on the job and nourish their children deserve to know whether
Ohio’s pregnancy-discrimination laws protect them.

I would hold in this case that employment discrimination due to lactation is unlawful pursuant to R.C. 4112.01(B), that clear public policy justifies an exception to the employment-at-will doctrine for women fired for reasons relating to lactation, and that LaNisa Allen deserves the opportunity—due to the state of the record—to prove her claim before a jury."

Bottom line: Totes decision to fire Allen was absolutely discriminatory. All she needed was FIVE extra minutes in her morning break. Five minutes. I can guarantee there are nicotine addicts who spend at least five minutes taking cigarette beaks. Not to mention, it's not like being hooked up to a machine and artificially pumped -- while sitting on a restroom TOILET -- is something a woman wants to do. It's uncomfortable, annoying and boring. But she was trying to selflessly do what's best for her child and what's natural for a post-pregnancy body while providing for her family.

Arrogance. Ignorance. Blatant sexism.

Looks like I'll be buying my umbrellas elsewhere, Totes.