The PWFA and PUMP Act, and What Employers Must Do

Two laws, one accommodation mindset

The PWFA and the PUMP Act are different statutes with different agencies behind them, but for an employer they point the same way: when a pregnant or nursing employee needs a workplace adjustment, the default is to provide it and document it, not to refuse it or push the person onto leave. Read the four duties below as the map, then hold them against how requests actually get handled in your workplace.

The accommodation duty is the heart of it, but the documentation limits and the PUMP space requirement are where small employers most often slip. The next sections take the accommodation framework, then the documentation and pumping rules, then where employers misread the line.

The 15-employee line, and how the PUMP Act differs

The two laws have different reach. The PWFA covers employers with 15 or more employees, the same threshold used for Title VII and the Americans with Disabilities Act, which is why the duty often arrives for the first time the year a growing business crosses 15. The PUMP Act is broader. It amends the Fair Labor Standards Act and so reaches nearly every employer, with no general size floor; the only relief is a narrow exemption for an employer with fewer than 50 employees that can show compliance would impose an undue hardship, judged against the difficulty or expense in the context of that employer’s size and resources. The practical result is that a very small business may sit outside the PWFA but still owe PUMP Act break time and space, and once it reaches 15 employees it owes both. The PWFA builds on existing protections rather than replacing them: pregnancy discrimination is already barred under Title VII, and accommodations for related disabilities can arise under the ADA, so a single situation can touch more than one law at once.

What a reasonable accommodation looks like, and undue hardship

A reasonable accommodation under the PWFA is a change to the work or the workplace that lets a qualified employee perform the job, or that pauses an essential function temporarily where pregnancy makes it impossible for a limited time. The EEOC’s examples include schedule changes for morning sickness or recovery, light duty or lifting restrictions, more frequent breaks, a stool or seating, time and space to pump or nurse, and leave to recover from childbirth where no other accommodation fits. The duty is triggered by a known limitation, communicated in plain terms; the employee does not need a formal diagnosis or magic words, and the limitation need not be severe. The employer can decline only on undue hardship, meaning significant difficulty or expense judged against the employer’s size, resources, and operation, and that is a real but narrow exit, not a default. Two things follow that employers underweight. First, unnecessary delay in responding can itself be a violation, even where the accommodation is eventually granted. Second, the employer may not force the employee onto leave if another reasonable accommodation would let them keep working.

When you cannot ask for a note, and the pumping space rule

The documentation limits are specific and easy to break out of habit. The EEOC rule says an employer may not request supporting documentation when the limitation and the need are obvious and the employee confirms them, when the employer already has enough information, for any of the four predictable assessments, for a request for time or space to pump or to nurse during work hours, or for an accommodation the employer already offers others without documentation. Where documentation is permitted at all, the employer may seek only the minimum needed to confirm the condition and the need. Asking a pregnant employee for a doctor’s note to get a water bottle or an extra restroom break is itself the misstep. On the PUMP side, the requirement is concrete: a nursing employee gets reasonable break time each time they need it to express milk, and a place to do so that is functional, shielded from view, free from intrusion, and not a bathroom, available for up to one year after the birth. Whether pumping break time is paid follows ordinary FLSA rules on breaks. Privacy runs through both: capture the limitation and the accommodation in general terms, keep any medical detail separate from the personnel file, and never record a diagnosis where the law does not require one.

The core framework is in force; one narrow piece is in litigation

The accommodation framework that matters to almost every employer, the duty to accommodate known pregnancy-related limitations and the documentation and anti-forced-leave rules, is in force and is being enforced. The litigation around the PWFA is narrow and specific. A federal court set aside the part of the EEOC rule that treated purely elective abortion as a covered condition, and separate court orders limited enforcement of that abortion-related piece for certain employers and in certain states, while a challenge to how the law was enacted has moved through the courts. None of that disturbs the core: water, breaks, seating, schedule changes, light duty, and the time and space to pump remain required for covered employers. The honest reading for a small employer is to run the ordinary accommodation process now, treat the four predictable assessments as automatic, and route any genuinely contested or unusual request, an undue-hardship call or a denial among them, to qualified employment counsel rather than guessing where the edges are.

Four ways employers misread these duties

• Asking for a doctor’s note when the law forbids it.For the four predictable assessments and for a pump-or-nurse request, an employer may not require documentation at all. Demanding a note to grant a water bottle, extra restroom breaks, or a stool is itself a violation, not a neutral process step.
• Forcing leave instead of accommodating.Putting a pregnant employee on leave is not the safe default. If a reasonable accommodation would let them keep working, the PWFA bars forcing leave. Leave is an accommodation of last resort, not the first move.
• Letting the request sit.Unnecessary delay can itself violate the PWFA, even when the accommodation is eventually granted. A request that stalls for weeks while it works through approvals is exposure, so respond promptly and document the interactive process.
• Offering a bathroom as the pumping space.The PUMP Act requires a place that is shielded from view, free from intrusion, and specifically not a bathroom. A toilet stall does not satisfy it, and the protection runs for up to a year after the birth, not a few weeks.

Where these figures come from

Tools that handle the request the right way

Common questions