Earlier this month Target’s company breastfeeding policy was released. It outlines how employees should handle and interact with nursing mothers in their stores.
It contains a few key points
– That customers can breastfeeding openly in any area of their stores.
– That if a customer would like to nurse in a fitting room they are to be given priority over others who are waiting.
– If approached by a mother always offer the fitting room for private nursing, never the bathroom and never approach her first.
This is great, especially since Target has had a couple of past incidences with employees not understanding breastfeeding laws. Target always issued sincere apologies, and welcomed moms who planned nurse-ins, but it is great to see they took the problem to heart and created a policy to be part of training new employees.
This new policy is very clear and leaves nothing for employees to misinterpret when dealing with possible complaints from other customers. They can simply quote the company policy to the offended guest and pass them some of their fine linen to put over their head while they shop.
All US states have laws protecting breastfeeding. The Breastfeeding Law website has a list of all state laws. Unfortunately, many states have no course of enforcement on the books for these laws and so we still need to rely on companies to have an enforceable policy of their own so there is some recourse if an employee breaks these laws.
Well done, Target! Other companies should take note. This is a simple policy that should be copied by all.
