A Florida mother is suing Walmart after she alleges the store she worked at would not make "reasonable accommodations" while she was at work to allow her to take breaks to pump breast milk so that she could feed her infant baby.
The woman said the Florida Walmart location that she worked at, in a town in the state's north called DeFuniak Springs, called her needs "problematic," according to papers filed in court. She says she was "harassed" for taking breaks to pump breast milk after giving birth in 2020. She was fired from the Florida Walmart location in January of 2021, the Miami Herald reported.
The woman is now suing Walmart for sex/pregnancy discrimination and was granted the right to do so by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in May, according to court filings.
A Walmart spokesperson named Randy Hargrove was quoted in McClatchy News saying, “We support our associates by providing accommodations every day and believe store management provided (the woman) with the necessary breaks to express milk in a secure, clean and private area.” He said that Walmart's policy “has always fully met or exceeded both state and federal law.”
The woman filed discrimination charges with the Florida Commission on Human Rights as well in September of 2021, but the FCHR “found it unlikely that any discrimination violating the law occurred in this case.”
