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Moralizing the law: Lactating workers and the transformation of supervising managers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Elizabeth A. Hoffmann
Elizabeth A. Hoffmann*
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA
*
Elizabeth A. Hoffmann, Department of Sociology, Purdue University, 349 Stone Hall, 700 W. State St, West Lafayette, IN 47907-2059, USA., Email: hoffmanne@purdue.edu, elizabethhoffmann1@mac.com
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Abstract

The Lactation at Work Law amended the Fair Labor Standards Act to mandate employer accommodation of employees' breast milk expression. Interviews with employees, human resource specialists, and supervising managers in nine industries found that some organizations' supervising managers, who initially perceived accommodations only as a legal mandate furthering managerial goals, over time changed to understanding lactation accommodations through a children's-health lens that created morality-driven motivations for legal compliance–a “moralization of the law.” Educational discussions with lactating employees not only provided these supervising managers with insights into lactation at work, but also sensitized them to ethical issues surrounding lactation accommodations.

Type
ARTICLES
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 56 , Issue 1 , March 2022 , pp. 28 - 52
Copyright
© 2022 Law and Society Association.

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Footnotes

How to cite this article: Hoffmann, Elizabeth A. 2022. “Moralizing the law: Lactating workers and the transformation of supervising managers.” Law & Society Review 56(1): 28-52. https://doi.org/10.1111/lasr.12588

References

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