Okay. Okay, moving on to breastfeeding in the workplace. So for anyone who gets our weekly reviews, you'll read about a case last week reported of a employee, I think she was a teacher actually, who won a sexual harassment case because she was forced to breastfeed in toilets and carpark. So that's a big area to tackle. So what is the law around employers requirements in making provisions for employees breastfeeding at work, Seamus?

Seamus: Well, usually the position is, look, the aspect of breastfeeding arises whenever the employee is intending to return to work. So there will normally have been a period of maternity leave and this is the point where the employee is seeking to return from work. And there are a number of things that the employee can do but initially, the employee needs to advise the employer, should advise the employer in writing that they . . . when they return to work that they're going to be breastfeeding.

Rolanda: Expressing milk. Sorry, may be expressing milk.

Seamus: Yes, that's the better way. And I suppose my starting point is to go back to the start of that, whenever a mother is intending to return back to work, there's a number of things that need to be thought about whenever they're returning to work and wish to continue to breastfeed. So looking around arranging for childcare and maybe having childcare close to the workplace in case they want to leave the workplace during their breaks to go out to breastfeed the child. And then the other aspect is the expressing breast milk so that somebody can feed the baby in mom's absence. And they can ask the employer for flexible working hours that are arranged around breastfeeding times and the needs of the breastfeeding. They can use a mixture of breastfeeding and formula feeding to fit around their working hours as well. But again, before returning to work, they really should let the employer know that when they return that they are intending either to breastfeed or to express.

And legally, it's up to the mother to decide for how long she wishes to breastfeed for. That's not a matter of concern for the employer. There's an EasyJet case which I want to mention to you where they made a decision to say six months was satisfactory. And that moms shouldn't be breastfeeding beyond that. And the courts were very clear of that's indirect discrimination and that's a choice for the employer. And so returning to work doesn't mean that mom has to stop in terms of breastfeeding or expressing milk. But again, written notification should be given in relation to it and what I would say is that employers are required to provide suitable facilities where pregnant and breastfeeding women can rest and they must also protect the health and safety of new and expectant mothers.

There is some advice from Acas on breastfeeding, Rolanda, that I was able to pull down but there's also a good guide for specifically for Northern Ireland in relation to the promotion of breastfeeding for mothers returning to work.

Rolanda: Just on that, Seamus, we have a . . . in our follow-up email, we sent links to that guidance. It's actually quite good link to that, that I mentioned about the breastfeeding teacher as well.

Seamus: Yeah. But the surprising point of all of that is that there is not a great deal of built-in specific wording in the legislation around breastfeeding. It comes under the discrimination legislation, specifically, in around gender on maternity and those sorts of issues. But in England, it's much better in terms of the layout of the legislation because they have the Equality Act that has been updated in 2010 and it incorporates specifically those elements for breastfeeding. In Northern Ireland, it's not specifically within our legislation in that sense, but where you will find it will be within the health and safety legislation and specifically the Health and Safety at Work regulations and the Northern Ireland regulations of 2000 and that incorporates a lot of European legislation as well.

But Article 17 of the regulations say that where a new mother works at night and there's a certain certificate from a registered medical practitioner that she should not be working at night for health and safety of her own and her child. It provides for that. Article 18-1 no action to be expected until the employer has written notification that the employee is pregnant and breastfeeding. And then in the 1993 regulations, it says that suitable facilities shall be provided for any person at work who is pregnant woman or nursing woman or nursing mother to rest. So it talks about the ability for mom to have those rest breaks. Again, if you think about the Employment Rights (Northern Ireland) Order 1996 on the duty to offer alternative work if the current work is no longer suitable. So if mom is saying the work's no longer suitable for me because of my breastfeeding arrangements, there's an element there and then of course, you're protected under the legislation Sex Discrimination (Northern Ireland) Order 1976 and it protects employees from less favourable treatment due to breastfeeding a baby.

And maybe just mentioned that in relation to additional breaks, again, the 1993 regulations do provide that mothers are entitled to rest, including somewhere to lie down but there's no legal requirement to provide a particular environment for employees to express or store milk. Again, it's back to this point that there has to be a safe place for them to do so. But I think it's definitely good practice and it's highly recommended for employers to provide facilities for their employees that are expressing or that maybe the baby is brought to the workplace and they feed at the workplace directly.

That case you specifically mentioned at the top there, that I think was the employee was required to go to the toilets, and there was no seating facilities or anything like that within the toilets and that they were dirty. It was just an inappropriate environment. And I think the case law is very clear that toilets are not an appropriate place for a mother to go to breastfeed.

And I think around about 10 years ago, I gave advices to a client of mine and it was the first time that I had given advices on breastfeeding, very successful. Mother was coming back to work, but had made clear that she was returning to work that she was continuing to breastfeed but that she would be expressing while she was at work. And she was offered a darkened broom cupboard that they asked her to go to and she was very clear about the circumstances and said no that that wasn't suitable. That's whenever I became involved to give advice in relation to it, and they had another office space that needed some redecoration works where they were able to facilitate and they were able to put a lock on the door that provide for privacy for the employee and it was a comfortable environment for the employee to express milk. They also put a fridge into the office so that mom could store the milk and I think even on occasions the child carer was coming down to collect the expressed milk and things like that as well. And again, mom had very clear view of what she required. And it was just bringing the employer around to getting in the mindset of the requirements and thinking about morale and thinking about the health and safety of the employee and everything else.

Ultimately, they wanted the employee to be performing well on the return to work and getting back, as they would've said, to normality. And this was just a step that assisted the employee in doing so. So there is that element just from that.

Mentioned briefly maybe, Rolanda. I know we're short on time. The Ambacher and McFarlane EasyJet case in around 2016. This involved two flight attendants. They were returning to work. They've notified the employer that they intended to continue to breastfeed, but they were put on shifts. I think the shifts were unrestricted duties of 12 hours per day, which just what . . . couldn't facilitate the element of breastfeeding with their children. And it did end up in the tribunal because EasyJet had made alternatives and given them some modifications. But the tribunal find that EasyJet had come up with a number of unworkable solutions. And they said each of which involved pain and suffering a significant detriment. And they held that EasyJet had discriminated against the two individuals indirectly on the grounds of their sex.

And I just flag up, there's another case there at the European Court of Justice case of Ramos. And what it said is that failing to carry out an adequate risk assessment for a breastfeeding employee may constitute direct sex discrimination. Another risk assessment the employer carries out and constantly just focus on the role of the employee does, has to also consider the circumstances of the particular worker and what would be adequate for the worker also.

It's a thorny issue, but you'd like to think that employer they can accommodate as much as possible and avoiding of sending them off to darkened rooms and dirty toilets in order to express milk.

Rolanda: Yeah. Thanks, Seamus. I mean, that guide that was sent and we linked to is actually very good because it contains those steps. You know, like working mothers make up a huge part of the working population, so you know, it's important to facilitate that.

Seamus: And I think just, Rolanda, as well we sent through a sample breastfeeding policy, and there's a recommendation that the employer should have a breastfeeding policy within maybe their staff handbook. And I think you're going to put a link to that as well after that.

Rolanda: Yes, that's included as well. So hopefully, you'll find that of some use. Now, thanks so much, Seamus. We could talk about those issues all day. And just before we finish off, and obviously, you see a wee slide there about our eLearning program, Managing and Motivating Remote Workers and you know, and we're updating our data protection one as well to take into account of of hybrid working. And so if you're interested in any of that, if you want to contact our eLearning team, or just pop yes into the question box now and somebody will get back in touch with you. And obviously there's 50% off for webinar attendees as you can see on the slide there.