Ram pickup truck maker Stellantis NV will add lactation rooms to its Sterling Heights Assembly Plant after complaints triggered a U.S. Labor Department investigation that found company policy violated federal protections for nursing mothers.
Wage and Hour Division investigators probed an allegation that a plant employee was expressing breast milk on the factory floor after being denied access to the plant’s four, single-person lactation rooms shared by a minimum of 19 mothers. The plant that makes the Ram 1500 pickup trucks employs nearly 7,000 workers, according to Stellantis’ website.
The investigators found mothers were waiting up to 20 minutes for an available room or expressing milk elsewhere like a community shower area. It also found Stellantis required nursing mothers to submit a doctor’s note and the baby’s birth certificate to use the rooms, preventing them from accessing the space when needed, a violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act, the department announced on Wednesday.
A request for comment was left with a Stellantis spokesperson late Wednesday morning.
Stellantis will amend its policy and add rooms as a result of the probe. The number of spaces that will be added wasn’t included in a news release from the Labor Department.
“Women make up about 43% of the workforce,” Timolin Mitchell, the Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division director in Detroit, said in a statement. “Removing barriers to employment, such “as” an inability to care for their newborn’s needs, are essential to keeping women in the workforce, a critical effort for the nation’s families.”
bnoble@detroitnews.com
Twitter: @BreanaCNoble