STAND. COM. REP. NO.  139-12

Honolulu, Hawaii

                , 2012

RE:   H.B. No. 2228

      H.D. 1

Honorable Calvin K.Y. Say

Speaker, House of Representatives

Twenty-Sixth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2012

State of Hawaii

Sir:

     Your Committee on Labor & Public Employment, to which was referred H.B. No. 2228 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO BREASTFEEDING IN THE WORKPLACE,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to ensure full equality for women in the workplace by:

     (1)  Requiring employers with twenty or more employees to make reasonable efforts to provide a clean location for breastfeeding employees to express breast milk in privacy;

     (2)  Requiring covered employers to post a notice pertaining to this provision in a conspicuous location; and

     (3)  Establishing a civil fine for the failure of an employer to provide a location or post notice. 

The American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii, Hawaii State Commission on the Status of Women, Planned Parenthood of Hawaii, Hawaii Women's Coalition, and Hawaii Government Employees Association testified in support of this measure.  The Hawaii Civil Rights Commission provided comments.

     According to the Hawaii State Commission on the Status of Women, in 2009, fifty percent of all mothers with children younger than twelve months of age were employed with sixty-nine percent of those women being employed full-time.  Many of these women often face difficulties in continuing to breastfeed their child while being employed and may have to stop breastfeeding sooner than they wish because of those challenges.  Providing clean, private locations for mothers to express breast milk in the workplace will help to solve this problem.

     Your Committee has amended this bill by inserting a fine of $50 for the failure of an employer to provide a location or post notice of a location for breastfeeding employees to express breast milk in privacy.  Technical, nonsubstantive amendments were also made for the purposes of clarity, consistency, and style.

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Labor & Public Employment that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 2228, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 2228, H.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Economic Revitalization & Business.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Labor & Public Employment,

____________________________

KARL RHOADS, Chair