Law's application and impact

Laws can affect what people believe to be morally correct. Laws have substantial symbolic power to communicate values and norms—sometimes shifting norms—within a society (Reference GusfieldGusfield, 1967; Reference McAdamsMcAdams, 2017). In this way, people who initially disagreed with a law's purpose may change their beliefs to internalize new norms because the law “redefin[es] the normative value of old practices or by creating the cognitive building blocks for new ones” (Reference Suchman and EdelmanSuchman & Edelman, 1996, p. 929). These “expressive powers independent of the legal sanctions threatened on violators” can create changed behavior even when enforcement is unlikely, sporadic, or not possible (Reference McAdamsMcAdams, 2017, p. 6).

Lovell's work on civil rights claims demonstrates that people can even invoke “rights” that is not actually articulated by the law. His work on civil rights claims found that people engage idealized legal claims to express their pleas for justice, even though the law does not fully support their actual claims (Reference LovellLovell, 2012). With LAWL, sometimes the law's specific requirements do not constrain accommodations, but inspire greater accommodations beyond those mandated by the law. In addition, new rights articulated by the law may empower those affected to act differently and engage in confrontations or “rights talk” they might not otherwise have (Reference McCannMcCann, 1994). The presence of the rights-conferring law allows those affected to question and confront the previous status quo (Reference KostinerKostiner, 2003).

Laws with “broad and ambiguous principles give organizations wide latitude to construct the meaning of compliance” (Reference EdelmanEdelman, 1992, p. 1532). However, even if the law has minimal ambiguity, organizations applying the law might reinterpret the text substantially differently from the law's original intent, but more advantageously for the organization (Reference KellyKelly, 2003; Reference StrykerStryker, 2001). An organization can spin interpretations producing the appearance of compliance without substantively changing its behavior. In this way, organizations might “offer creative, self-interested interpretations of law, even when the law is explicit and seems to point unambiguously to particular interpretations” (Reference KellyKelly, 2003, p. 615).

LAWL is more specific than many civil rights laws. It instructs organizations to provide lactating employees with a private space to express milk that is not a bathroom, to allow them to use their break time to express milk, and either provide, or allow the employee to provide, storage for the expressed milk. However, the law does not stipulate exactly what employers must do in terms of those space provisions or time allotments—the two key areas needing accommodation. For example, how convenient must the lactation space be and what happens if the time needed to travel to the designated lactation room consumes most of an employee's break time?

Management and the law

Workers' needs often require management to deviate from usual ways of operation, yet organizations often find this difficult, since many aspects that could be altered to provide sufficient accommodation may seem unchangeable—institutionalized within the organizational culture (Reference Berger and LuckmannBerger & Luckmann, 1966). O'Brien documents how, even when addressing the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), employers expected the disabled to accommodate society, rather than disrupt what seemed “normal” (2001). In particular “many of the characteristics of work that seem natural, normal, and inevitable involve practices regarding time and employer control” (Reference AlbistonAlbiston, 2010, p. 1104). Yet, the employee's control over her time and place to obtain necessary private space and minutes to pump milk is exactly what this law addresses.

It is these “practices implementing the policies [that] can alter the very definition” of those laws within the organization (Reference MarshallMarshall, 2005, p. 87). As organizations respond to, interpret, and apply the law, that law becomes institutionalized and transformed by the very organizations that the laws are intended to control (Reference Dobbin and KellyDobbin & Kelly, 2007; Reference Edelman, Nelson and NielsenEdelman, 2005; Reference Fuller, Edelman and MatusikFuller et al., 2000; Reference Kelly, Moen and TranbyKelly et al., 2011; Reference MarshallMarshall, 2005; Reference StrykerStryker, 2007).

Edelman notes that “as organizations become increasingly legalized, the law becomes managerialized”; focus shifts from legal concepts to managerial goals, creating policies that might only symbolize compliance, yet usually engender no true changes (Reference Edelman, Nelson and NielsenEdelman, 2005, p. 340). By managerializing the law, formal organizational structures and procedures transform legal imperatives, such as equality, into conventional managerial goals, such as efficiency, making changes that might or might not actually further the actual goals of the law (Reference Edelman, Fuller and Mara-DitraEdelman et al., 2001; Reference SeijtsSeijts, 2002). While Edelman and others recognize that managerialization can, on rare occasion, create effective compliance, the thrust of managerialization theory is that the replacement of legal ideals with managerial frameworks generally results in changes that are symbolic and inadequate. It is the unusual positive change, when the organization's response creates effective results, discussed in this article.

Organizational advocates

Relationships with the law vary between different organizational actors. Legal texts are HR specialists' touchstones (see Reference MarshallMarshall, 2005; Reference Suchman and EdelmanSuchman & Edelman, 1996), working more closely with lawyers and focusing on the specifics of legal compliance. In contrast, supervising managers are further removed from the letter of the law, often being less cooperative to legal compliance than HR specialists would be. Indeed, extant research shows that, while HR specialists bring the law into the organization, managers often block full compliance in quests for efficiency, control, and organizational goals (e.g., Reference Gwartney-Gibbs and LachGwartney-Gibbs & Lach, 1992; Reference HalldenHallden, 2015; Reference Hodson and RoscignoHodson & Roscigno, 2004; Reference Kelly, Moen, Oakes, Fan, Okechukwu, Davis and HammerKelly et al., 2014; Reference MarshallMarshall, 2003). Yet, my data show the opposite: supervising managers embraced greater accommodation and compliance with the goals of the law.

Organizational reactions to the law can range from minimally compliant to enthusiastic compliance beyond the law's mandates. For example, in their study of environmental law, Kagan et al. documented differences in compliance between “committed compliers” who followed exactly what the law dictated, and “true believers” who saw environmental law compliance as important to their corporate identity (2012). Similarly, in their study of ADA compliance, Barnes and Burke contrasted those organizational actors whose compliance was “proactive [and] cooperative” because they had “internalized the social model of the ADA … describe[ing] themselves as partners of the disability community,” with other actors who exhibited “minimalist practices,” “reactive, cooperative rights practices,” and “reactive minimalist practices”—all of whom either resisted compliance or complied without being proactive (2006, p. 507).

The transformation of powerful actors into moral allies can be critical in developing “policy entrepreneurs” for this law within organizations (Reference Raymond, Weldon, Kelly, Arriaga and ClarkRaymond et al., 2013). Less powerful actors can successfully transform powerful actors into allies through normative arguments as well as value-neutral information (e.g., Reference Harrison, Lopez and MartinHarrison et al., 2015; Reference Nielsen and ParkerNielsen & Parker, 2012; Reference Skitka and MorganSkitka & Morgan, 2014). For example, Desai and Kouchaki found that employees could induce greater ethical behavior by their supervisors by invoking and displaying moral symbols, such as religious icons or Gandhi (2017). Value-neutral information swayed powerful decision makers in Weinberg and Nielsen's study of increased judicial empathy, when parties sensitized judges on matters with which they may have had little personal experience (2012). In my study, lactating workers were able to use both normative arguments (e.g., milk as natural and health-promoting) and value-neutral information (e.g., how milk production worked) to transform supervising managers into “moral allies,” to use Becker's term (1963), and, thus, could reframe compliance through a health-focused morality argument that created better accommodations for their lactation at work.

Sufficient access to those in power is often only available to people with adequate power themselves and educational discussions with powerful actors entails some level of risk (e.g., Reference Abel and AbelAbel,  1982; Reference CrenshawCrenshaw, 1988; Reference Delgado, Dunn, Brown, Lee and HubbertDelgado et al., 1985; Reference Edelman, Erlanger and LandeEdelman et al., 1993; Reference GalanterGalanter, 1974; Reference GrilloGrillo, 1991; Reference HoffmannHoffmann, 2001, Reference Hoffmann2005; Reference Lazerson and AbelLazerson, 1982; Reference McEwen, Mather and MaimanMcEwen et al., 1994; Reference SaratSarat, 1990; Reference Silbey and SaratSilbey & Sarat, 1989). By providing information that is unknown to the powerful actors, less-powerful employees may annoy or anger those whom they hope will become their allies. New information, especially when in opposition to previously held beliefs, is not always welcome and can cause aggravation (Reference Boyle and CorleBoyle & Corle, 2010; Reference Plumm and TerrancePlumm & Terrance, 2009). Reflecting these insights, some of the lactating workers in my study were unable to have educational conversations with their supervising managers because they lacked power. Additionally, the women who were able to do so, often did so with some recognition that their assertiveness was not without risk.

Sampling

This project draws on interviews with 173 employees who were expressing breast milk at work and 188 HR specialists and supervising managers. Interviewees were drawn from 113 businesses from professional firms and 10 industries—construction, dining/hotel/tourism, education, finance, government, health/medical, manufacturing, media, retail, and transportation. This study encompasses viewpoints and experiences from varied, multi-sited fieldwork across a range of industries for greater validity (Reference HindHind, 2007; Reference Lévi-StraussLévi-Strauss, 1969). These industries provided a mix of businesses to include blue-collar and service sectors; predominantly female, gender neutral, and predominantly male businesses; high- and low-entry cost positions; and a wide range of substantive foci.

HR specialists were those working in HR departments, or similar employee benefit departments, overseeing their organizations' interpretations and applications of new policies. Supervising managers were those directly overseeing workers and engaged in activities such as performance evaluation, scheduling, and assignments. For example, in hospitals, these manager-supervisors were clinic or division managers; in school systems, principals; in the tourism and finance industries, general managers for a specific hotel or bank.

This article addresses a subset of the data: including only those HR specialists and supervising managers who had no personal or close second-hand experience with pumping milk or nursing. Those with direct or near-indirect experience are discussed fully and exclusively in another publication (Reference HoffmannHoffmann, 2019). Because of their social proximity to the issues of breastfeeding and expressing milk at work, these were HR personnel and supervising managers who advocated for full lactation accommodation at, or even before, Time 1. They often used the law to create legitimacy for lactation needs within their organizations. With the law as leverage, they implemented accommodations that met and even exceeded the legal requirements.

In 2009, I began interviewing lactating employees, HR personnel, and supervising managers in Indiana to learn how businesses were interpreting and applying the new state law. Four to 6 years after the initial interviews, HR specialists and managers were reinterviewed to see if their interpretations, practices, or viewpoints had changed, having lived with this new law for several years. To capture effects of the 2010 federal LAWL, in 2011, I expanded the study to Wisconsin, a state that had no state-level LAWL, with reinterviewing in 2015–2016.

Thus, for Wisconsin, the federal LAWL was a new law covering a new workplace issue, just as the state-level law had been new for Indiana. I chose Wisconsin for its cultural similarity to Indiana, both being central Midwestern states with similar racial and ethnic demographics. Wisconsin interviews were initially performed to explore how organizations responded differently to federal than state laws addressing the same goals. There were no meaningful differences between the Indiana and Wisconsin interviews.

Interviews

Interviews ranged from 20 to 120 min, most lasted between 30 and 90 min. All interviews were recorded and transcribed. All quotations are direct quotes. A strategic decision was made to interview both supervising managers and human relation specialists. Whereas compliance professionals, like HR specialists, interpret the law and craft policy in response to those laws, mid-level managers directly transform these policies into day-to-day workplace reality.

Interviews focused on understandings and application of the new LAWL. Questions addressed how they complied with the new law; how they explained it to others outside their organizations; how they, themselves, learned about the law; and how they would explain the law to subordinates or peers. Interviewees were asked general, open-ended questions, but with some direct questions, especially for follow-up.

Transcribed interviews were coded using qualitative data software (NVivo). To analyze these interview data, I began with directed qualitative content analysis (Reference Hseigh and ShannonHseigh & Shannon, 2005), with specific ideas for topics and questions to investigate. The coding scheme draws on specific research on workplace accommodation, legal compliance, and organizational response to laws. Coding was expanded to conventional content analysis (Reference Hseigh and ShannonHseigh & Shannon, 2005), locating additional coding categories directly from interview transcriptions. Sometimes these themes were responses to specific questions (e.g., “What sort of internal publications do you use to communicate about this law?” “What would an employee do if she felt she needed different accommodations for pumping breast milk?” “What could she do if she didn't receive the accommodation she requested?”). Many others were extracted from responses to broader questions (e.g., “How would you explain the law to someone else in the same industry?” “What would you change about this law if you could just snap your fingers and it would be different?” “How would you handle an employee who …?”) or to follow-up questions regarding other responses. Thus, many codes were not the result of direct questions or sets of questions intended to measure a particular phenomenon, but were produced by careful analysis of responses.

Methods

A key benefit of qualitative research is the high validity possible (Reference HindHind, 2007; Reference Lévi-StraussLévi-Strauss, 1969). The researcher does not simply read off a survey, but asks initial questions and then probes the responses to understand the fuller, more complete situation. Thus, “the researcher is able to understand the greater context, to obtain a large overview, and can triangulate the accounts of differently situated interviewees with various bases of knowledge” (Reference HoffmannHoffmann, 2008, p. 274).

Interviewees in this study were asked open-ended questions on a wide variety of work-related topics. Open-ended interviewing uses a simple, straightforward structure of a predetermined initial set of questions with each interviewee, to ensure coverage of key topics with everyone. However, this was not simply an oral survey whose responses could be tabulated to capture trends. Rather, through both initial probes and follow-up questions, I could develop interviews in the most productive way and explore all fruitful comments given by subjects. By permitting the interviewee to expand on any question or even move to other topics altogether, and by following interviewees' tangents with appropriate additional questions, I could increase the amount of data collected, ensure greater credibility and dependability of the data, and heighten the study's validity (Reference Denzin and LincolnDenzin & Lincoln, 2000; Reference HoffmannHoffmann, 2007). Thus, the thrust of these data is to explore themes and competing conceptualizations, not frequencies. Throughout this article, percentages or other statistics are not provided, in order to maintain focus on the narrative of concepts (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000; Hoffmann, 2007).

Managerialization

Organizations engage in managerialization by interpreting legal compliance in ways that preserve the organizations' core operations yet protects the organization from substantial legal scrutiny. Most often, the literature identifies ways that this managerialization creates purely symbolic, inadequate compliance; the translation of legal ideals into managerial goals results in neutralizing the law in order to preserve organizational priorities (Reference EdelmanEdelman, 2016). However, I identified several organizations where effective accommodations resulted from managerialization of LAWL; while this has been acknowledged as a theoretical possibility, it is seldom observed. When applying LAWL, sometimes managerialization resulted in more substantive, less purely symbolic compliance. This was when lactation accommodations complemented the culture or structure of that particular organization and so caused negligible disruption. Further discussion of this somewhat surprising finding regarding managerialization is outside the scope of this present article, but see (Reference HoffmannHoffmann, 2019, Reference Hoffmann2021) for more discussion.

Much more frequently, however, managerialization in the literature results in symbolic compliance and inadequate organizational changes, such as in the following discussion of a preestablished wellness room at a data analysis business. In their interviews, the lactating employee's manager and HR specialist praised the law and the business's wellness room as benefitting morale and diminishing turnover. However, the wellness room was a poor accommodation, being far from where the employee worked, even though it satisfied the requirements of the law.

The wellness room benefited the employer by providing proof of its compliance without detracting from its preexisting ways of working. The physical accommodation conformed to the letter of the law—private space, not a lavatory. However, because this company's wellness room was inconveniently located and the employee was not allowed sufficient break time to travel to and from the wellness room and express milk, the accommodations were merely symbolically compliant. The law was satisfied officially, but, in practice, no workable solution was provided.

In this organization, compliance seemed easy since there already was a wellness room that met requirements; allowing this employee to use that space in no way challenged existing managerial method or threatened core operations. However, allowing the lactating employee sufficient breaktime was too great a disruption to operations and was beyond any possible management flexibility. This organization officially complied with the law, praised the law's accommodations' managerial benefits, yet the compliance was merely symbolic, resulting in little real change.

This nicely illustrates managerialization. This organization engaged in no change to comply with the law. It presented what was already in place as if it were law-driven accommodation. In fact, in shifting from legal goals to managerial priorities, these accommodations were insufficient and, while not inconveniencing the employer, did not provide adequate benefit to the lactating worker.

Educational conversations: from managerialization to children's health

However, in some organizations, managers' focus shifted from both the law and managerial motivations to include a moral framework of children's health. These managers became Morality-Motivated Advocates, supporting their lactating employees, drawing on health-focused rhetoric and implementing accommodations beyond the minimum requirements when necessary. These managers went from—sometimes begrudgingly—just complying with the law at Time 1 to fully supporting lactation accommodations, 5 years later, at Time 2. During second wave interviews, about two-thirds of managers (who had not been Allies Already at Time 1, above in “Sampling”) no longer described their understanding of lactation accommodations exclusively through the lens of managerial needs, as they had done at Time 1, but had shifted to include a morality-based health-and-wellness understanding of LAWL to justify fully complying or even exceeding legal mandates. In contrast, HR personnel continued to maintain their focus solely on benefit to the organization.

This new focus on health and wellness was not simply a means to a managerial end (e.g., fewer sick kids results in fewer sick days of parents missing work), nor was it a strategic way to help their organizations. Instead, this seemed to be a focus on health for its own sake. For example, during his second interview, this middle-aged, white manager in the transportation industry explained his focus on the health benefits of breastfeeding for the children of his staff:

This contrasts with the comments he made during his first interview:

His initial focus was on managerial benefits from LAWL and how it met goals beneficial to the organization, like reducing turnover.

One of his lactating employees, a white woman in her 20s, explained that occasionally she struggled with finding a place to express her milk. When this happened, she would go to her manager to ask what space she should try next.

Although each hurdle was a frustration for her, these frustrating moments also presented opportunities for her to discuss lactation with her managers and engage in educational conversations.

Similarly, at Time 1, a white, male supervisor of office workers in a manufacturing organization said, fairly tersely, that the lactation accommodations were

In fact, by Time 2, these educational conversations had been so effective that the manager [#157] permitted the employee extra time to express milk; now he framed the accommodations as more than legal compliance and vital to supporting key health goals:

Without the law mandating accommodations, these lactating employees could not have commanded their managers' attention to reevaluate their understandings of breast milk and lactation accommodations.

Importantly, this shift to health goals could even include benefits of those outside and unrelated to the organization. For example, at Time 1, this director of a county government office was focused on the benefits of the lactation accommodations to the organization and the employee; although he used the words “everyone is happy,” he was referring to people within his organization:

In the second wave interview, this white, middle-aged man believed that by supporting his lactating employees he was helping his country as a whole:

This manager's switch by Time 2 to understanding that breastfeeding benefits people entirely outside the organization shows a substantial shift. Between the two interviews, this manager did not simply change his talk; he became a Morality-Motivated Advocate, successfully mobilizing for an additional lactation room near his employees' work area, even though a legally compliant room was available farther away.

Importantly, these conversations did not happen in a vacuum. The law created the organizational commitment. Arguably, the frame of health and wellness was first provided by LAWL, since this amendment to the FLSA came from the Affordable Care Act. Moreover, organizational knowledge that these accommodations were legally mandated bestowed legitimacy on the needs, which encouraged managers to engage with and listen to lactating employees. These managers often voiced their awareness of the law during their first interviews, such as when manager #157 said, “It's the law now.” However, LAWL created space for conversations that deepened knowledge and facilitated effective compliance.

Employees' stories on educational conversations

Many workers who engaged in educational discussions with their managers described these discussions as difficult, at least initially. For example, this grade school teacher described how she had to emotionally prepare before talking to her school's principal:

The structure of her workplace, with her principal exercising substantial power over her, created a great emotional hurdle for engaging him in educational conversations.

Educational discussions sometimes posed risks to the lactating employees insofar that they were challenging their managers' beliefs about motherhood, worker identity, physiology, and division between home and work. Literature shows that posing alternate understandings to powerful actors' beliefs—although critical to changing their opinions—might also anger or annoy them (Reference Boyle and CorleBoyle & Corle, 2010; Reference O'BrienO'Brien, 2001; Reference Plumm and TerrancePlumm & Terrance, 2009). An example is disabled workers initiating discussions for better accommodations (Reference O'BrienO'Brien, 2001). In less supportive work environments, educational conversations could involve asserting one's dual parent-employee identity, defending one's parenting philosophies, and discussing one's anatomy in workplace contexts that could be intimidating, and, with temperamental managers, truly dangerous.

By providing legitimacy and leverage, the law created space for educational conversations—conversations that were important for effective, substantive compliance. The political importance of the law is critical because the law facilitates educational conversations by enabling women to remain at work, to continue to breastfeed, and to tell their stories. Critically, the law imbues educational conversations with legitimacy so that employees can talk with reticent, resistant, underinformed, and less helpful managers about lactation.

Some lactating employees, like the restaurant employee below, saw the law as a source of strength that confirmed the legitimacy of her needs and accommodations.

Even though the employee never directly mentioned the law to her manager, her own knowledge of the law helped her ask for what she needed.

Similarly, this white office worker in the transportation industry talks about how the law empowered her to ask for necessary accommodations:

Similarly, an accounting firm receptionist drew on the very presence of LAWL to validate her needs.

Even though very few women in this study explicitly discussed the law with their managers, the law substantially supported their ability to ask for accommodations. These women knew that the law granted the right to express milk at work and to secure certain accommodations from their employers. This knowledge of their legal rights shifted the onus from them onto the legal mandate; their requests were legal entitlements rather than special favors, which confirmed the validity of their needs.

Managers' stories

Employees and managers were aware of the power of these educational conversations. They observed the shift from management goals to a moralized focus on health benefits for children. For example, at Time 2, a manager explained that his acceptance of his employees' pumping at work and his greater understanding of the health benefits of breastfeeding came directly as a result of discussions with his lactating workers.

This unmarried white man started out with so little knowledge of breastfeeding that he described mothers' milk as repulsive. After conversations with his employees about why pumping and breastfeeding were important to them, he not only understood the health benefits; he became a supporter of breastfeeding. Similarly, this manager in manufacturing did not understood the value of breast milk until his lactating employees taught him about it:

A principal, who shared that his wife had not breastfed their children, related that his employees taught him about the value of breast milk.

These managers—whether they were originally indifferent, ignorant, or resentful—learned about more than breast milk and pumping from their employees. They were exposed to their lactating workers' values and commitment to breastfeeding. Over time, they were transformed into Morality-Motivated Advocates.

Employees' stories

Lactating employees also spoke of educating their managers about various benefits of breastfeeding; sometimes explicitly explaining why pumping at work was necessary to breastfeed at home and be comfortable at work. These workers shared their beliefs in the importance of breastfeeding and their dedication to this goal. For example, this office worker, who had struggled with getting sufficient space for milk expression, described how she had to explain to her manager the health reasons for breastfeeding.

Her supervising manager's transformation surprised and touched her so much that she was moved to tears.

Other workers echoed this experience (although often with less emotion), explaining that they, too, had to educate their managers, often in order to secure adequate accommodations. Eventually, educational conversations resulted in managers becoming advocates. For example, this event planner with her town's Chamber of Commerce explained how the issue of expressing milk at work was a foreign concept to her manager, but once he understood her predicament, he arranged for her to have a more easily accessible location to pump.

Similarly, the mother quoted below was an office worker in a downtown firm with very little space available for pumping in private. She explained how she initially encountered resistance, but persevered and educated her manager, who rallied to find her better space and granted her greater flexibility for lactation breaks:

This story illustrates the power of these employee-manager conversations about lactation. The influence of their ongoing discussions even extended to the manager's actions outside the workplace to his own family. Day-to-day interactions of managers and lactating workers enabled critical discussions that educated these supervising managers about the health benefits of breastfeeding, the physiology of lactation, and the personal beliefs behind these employees' commitment to expressing milk at work.

Why no shift for HR personnel?

In contrast to managers, HR personnel neither shifted their focus to children's health concerns nor engaged in moralization of the law. HR specialists did not shift their attitudes or actions to encompass any belief that expressing milk or breastfeeding benefitted society. The deviation between HR professionals and some managers in second wave interviews highlights key differences between these two somewhat similar groups with regard to employees and to the law.

First, HR specialists spend substantial time working with supervising managers to implement the new policies and very little time interacting with employees. Unlike managers, who have daily interactions with employees, HR specialists continued to focus on managerial goals. They did not have as many educational conversations with workers and were not exposed to their pro-breastfeeding values. Additionally, the HR department compels managers to follow the letter of the law. In this case, they were charged with helping workers secure time and space for milk expression, meaning they often spent more time educating managers who were resistant to implementing the new policies. For this reason, their efforts were focused on convincing managers to comply, not on receiving information or learning about workers' experiences, whether directly from the workers or managers.

Second, HR specialists were more focused on the law and how compliance could benefit the organization. They could not promote a public-spirited argument for fear it would undermine their reputation of loyalty to the organization. In maintaining a focus on managerial goals, HR personnel demonstrated that they were strategically addressing issues crucial to the organization (e.g., absenteeism)—a role they conceptualize primarily as ensuring the organization's compliance with the law–and were not idealistic activists overreaching their role. The HR specialist's professional field, therefore, is radically different from the supervising manager's: The HR specialist focuses on the organization, its place within society, and its compliance with society's laws; they are not charged with addressing the day-to-day needs of workers. Because of this, they have much less daily contact with employees than managers (see Reference Edelman, Fuller and Mara-DitraEdelman et al., 2001; Reference MarshallMarshall, 2005; Reference Suchman and EdelmanSuchman & Edelman, 1996).

In contrast, managers deal directly with the needs of their employees—whether they are accommodating or rejecting those needs. They are aware of which accommodations are used and to what extent that usage disrupts workings of the organization. For example, if lactation breaks diminish employees' productivity, managers not only are aware of it, but are responsible for compensating for it. HR personnel are insulated from actualizations of accommodations, including possible hidden costs. Therefore, it is striking that so many managers became Morality-Motivated Advocates, because of their proximity to these costs.

The law

The law was critical for these conversations to occur in four ways: First, an obvious, but often overlooked, reality about workplace requests and grievances is that they are seldom found in workplaces that are so difficult that workers who might present those requests and grievances have been driven out (see Reference HoffmannHoffmann, 2006). In the case of lactation accommodations, if a workplace makes milk expression too difficult, the woman will either stop pumping at work, possibly ceasing nursing and lactation altogether, or she will prioritize lactation over employment and quit. In those scenarios, no lactating employee remains to discuss adequate accommodations. Thus, the law facilitates these dialogs first by helping lactating workers remain at work and continue to express milk so they have these important conversations.

Second, the law provided leverage and was a key structural component of the success of the educational conversations. The lactating workers' recognition that the law was in their “back pocket” helped them feel that they were not alone, and that they could use it to force organizational compliance. The law, and the specific rights it provided, could take on the burden of “being demanding” so the workers could purse their rights and request the accommodations they needed by simply invoking the authoritarian voice of the law. Thus, regardless of whether the lactating employees engaged in actual rights talk with their managers or not, the presence of the law legitimizes these women's accommodation needs, allowing them to challenge the hegemonic view separating family duties from the workplace (Reference KostinerKostiner, 2003).

Third, by mandating specific accommodations, the law provided a direct, tangible way to discuss what adequate accommodations would look like. Many civil rights laws include general proscriptions, such as “equal opportunity,” but they rarely mandate specific accommodations. While the exact nature of the breaks and the precise locations of the places provided to the employees for their milk expression are not specified by the law, the presence of these two articulated accommodations opens the opportunity to discuss aspects of those accommodations. How inconvenient can a lactation room be to still be useable? How much variation in the length of break can be adjusted? Why do these issues matter?

Finally, the law provided legitimacy. Knowledge of these accommodations being established by law confirmed their importance and the activity they facilitate. These accommodations are not mere recommendations or suggestions, but mandates. Thus, the weight of the law confers importance onto the activity the law protects. By its very presence, LAWL signals that workplace milk expression is so valuable an endeavor that the state and federal governments passed laws to protect and encourage it. While a place to pump and time to do so are both critical to successful milk expression at work, without the legitimacy conferred by the law on the activity, far fewer women would have negotiated adequate accommodations. More crucially, without the legitimacy bestowed by the law, far fewer women would have the temerity to engage in the educational conversations with their supervising managers to discuss their accommodations.

Worker power: Enough, but not too much

A sizeable minority of managers at Time 2 did not moralize the law. They maintained their earlier focus on managerial goals as a rationale for understanding the importance of compliance. The managerial conversion was not uniform because educational conversations did not uniformly occur.

Not all lactating workers successfully educated their managers. While a substantial minority did not need such conversations, others could not have them. These dialogs often were difficult. In many ways, lactating employees' burden of explaining the importance and benefits of breastfeeding to managers is similar to that of many minority groups, who often find themselves having to teach others about basic knowledge regarding their group's struggles (see Reference HerringHerring, 2009; Reference RoysterRoyster, 2003). Just as it is not the responsibility of members of racial or other minority groups to educate others, it is not the responsibility for the lactating workers; yet, as with minority groups, if they do not provide this education, they often experience worse interactions and greater struggles.

Lactating workers who could not have successful educational conversations faced lesser workplace conditions, inadequate accommodations, and unresolved disputes. Indeed, not all the lactating employees who attempted to have these educational conversations met with success. For example, this administrative assistant in a physical science department at a large university described her attempts to talk with her supervisor:

Her manager never assisted in improving her lactation accommodations and during both interviews he expressed the belief that the accommodations were not a problem for him, and that his employees were doing fine and had no complaints.

Without educational conversations with lactating employees, managers were unlikely to change from Time 1 to Time 2. These managers continued to articulate managerial needs and assumed that basic compliance would provide adequate accommodation. They did not shift to a broader understanding that included the moral benefit of children's health as the key motivation for compliance.

Women's levels of organizational and societal privilege affected their ability to assert their needs. Sufficient power—such as access to managers to engage in educational conversations or enough job security to risk potentially tricky confrontations—is both an issue for the educational conversations and an ongoing issue regarding workplace disputes (e.g., Reference Abel and AbelAbel,  1982; Reference CrenshawCrenshaw, 1988; Reference Delgado, Dunn, Brown, Lee and HubbertDelgado et al., 1985; Reference Edelman, Erlanger and LandeEdelman et al., 1993; Reference GalanterGalanter, 1974; Reference GrilloGrillo, 1991; Reference HoffmannHoffmann, 2001, Reference Hoffmann2005; Reference Lazerson and AbelLazerson, 1982; Reference McEwen, Mather and MaimanMcEwen et al., 1994; Reference SaratSarat, 1990; Reference Silbey and SaratSilbey & Sarat, 1989). In most workplaces, men hold the majority of management positions (Reference Haveman and BeresfordHaveman & Beresford, 2012). This was true for the organizations in this study, as well, further exacerbating the difficulty of these employee-manager discussions for some women.

Workers who initiated these critical conversations did so because they needed their managers' support. They lacked autonomy to make changes in the workplace without their assistance. However, they also had sufficient standing with their managers to make these conversations happen. That is, the employees who had these educational conversations had enough—but not too much—power. In some ways, this makes sense: workers who easily acquired sufficient accommodations did not have to engage their managers in any discussion to gain needed accommodations. But those workers whose work conditions required accommodations for time or space needed to talk with their managers in order to work out solutions. These talks could evolve into educational conversations.

Sufficient autonomy

Some lactating employees did not need to discuss lactation accommodations because their workplace arrangements already were sufficient, such as this university professor with her own office, who could pump privately whenever she wanted:

Because she had control over her time and adequate privacy, she required little accommodation from her organization, and so rarely spoke with her supervising manager about lactation and the accommodations it necessitated.

Illustrating the power of autonomy in the workplace, this supervisor of city assessors contrasted her previous job with her current one.

Similarly, this middle school guidance counselor explained that her flexible schedule and private office obviated discussing her milk expression needs with anyone

Without the need to request accommodations for pumping, they did not have to wrestle with the legitimacy or appropriateness of their milk expression needs as other women in this study did.

These workers enjoyed sufficient autonomy that was already built into their jobs, their locations, and in their organizational hierarchies, in contrast with substantially disempowered workers who desperately needed the law to assert their rights. Workers with autonomy did not need to request a place to pump, since they had easy access to places already. They did not need to negotiate time away from their work activities because their schedules were sufficiently flexible. Because they had sufficient autonomy of space and time, they did not need to concern themselves with the legitimacy of their request. Indeed, they did not need to make any formal requests, whether deemed legitimate or not, since asserting their rights in this situation was less crucial.

However, without needing to make formal requests, they also did not need to have educational conversations with their supervising managers—conversations that could result in those managers becoming allies. For example, the principal who served as supervising manager of the guidance counselor [W084] was only abstractly aware of the guidance counselor's decision to pump milk. The guidance counselor explained:

Without the motivation of need, the employee did not engage in any educational conversations with her principal. His attitudes did not shift between Time 1, when he expressed managerial goals, and Time 2. He did not work to improve lactation accommodations during that time. Without the benefit of those educational conversations, the manager did not gain any understanding of breastfeeding that would have compelled him to moralize LAWL and embrace the societal goal of children's health.

Insufficient power

Employees' status within the organization and within society influenced their success in facilitating educational conversations. Some lactating employees felt insufficiently secure in their organizations and institutional hierarchies to have such discussions. In stark contrast to the circumstances of the upper-middle class, Ph.D.-educated professor, above, this department store clerk considered discussing adequate pumping accommodations with her supervising manager, but felt too powerless.

She did not ask her manager for assistance even though she often could not get away when she needed to pump and frequently struggled to find a private space when she did get a lactation break. Most likely as a consequence of infrequent milk expression at work, her milk supply plummeted soon after she began working. She stopped breastfeeding entirely after 3 months.

This manufacturing industry office worker described how little control she had over her time and her physical space.

Despite facing extreme barriers to workplace lactation, these women felt unable to discuss difficulties with their managers, much less educate them about benefits of breast milk or share their values that made them want to commit to pumping at work.

Indeed, at Time 2, the supervising manager of Interviewee #W066, the office worker, was unchanged. She said at Time 2:

She did not expand or improve the lactation accommodations beyond what had already been available, nor did she moralize the law to embrace a focus on children's health.

These lactating workers were unable to engage in educational conversations because they lacked sufficient power within their organizations, existing at the bottom of their organizations' hierarchies with little access to managers, such as Interviewee #W008, a store clerk. Another worker in this situation was Interviewee #W066, a lower-tier office worker, who could talk with her manager, but was not able to request improved accommodations. Without those educational conversations, these workers' supervising managers did not moralize the law by shifting to children's health motivations, nor did they improve accommodations to better facilitate workers' milk expression.

Women's rights obscured amid children-focused rhetoric

Lactating workers drew on a range of concepts—legal rights, benefits to the organization, benefits to their own health, and benefits to their children's health in their educational conversations with their supervising managers. However, it was specifically the increased awareness about the benefits of breastfeeding to children's health that created Morally-Motivated Allies. This moralization of the law elevates children's health above maternal health, workers' rights, and managerial goals, arguing for accommodations even when they reduce productivity or profit, for example. By focusing on children's needs rather than workers' rights, manager-allies can articulate a motivation for greater accommodation that minimally challenges the power inherent in the workplace hierarchy.

Less focus on the lactating workers' rights removes certain hurdles that other accommodation-seekers wrestle with. Employees requesting accommodations for other needs—such as disability modifications—usually engage rights talk as a main verbal strategy. Yet, rights talk often demands the linguistic and emotional gymnastics of asserting difference in order to request equitable treatment and the very request can be stigmatizing (Reference AlbistonAlbiston, 2010; Reference Barnes and BurkeBarnes & Burke, 2012; Reference BumillerBumiller, 1988; Reference Chua and EngelChua & Engel, 2019; Reference Engel and MungerEngel & Munger, 2003; Reference O'BrienO'Brien, 2005). The child gains a fictious right to expressed breast milk, which, although unfounded in law, has power, similar to some of the rights assertions to unfounded rights found in the government letters discussed by Reference LovellLovell (2012). This shift in whose rights were being asserted enabled women workers to demand lactation accommodations without actually having to assert rights for themselves, avoiding those difficulties of most other groups when needing accommodations.

This interpretation of children's rights is another shift away from women's rights and workers' rights frameworks—just as managerialization moved from employee rights to managerial goals. In this case, the shift is immediately helpful for women—it helps meet their needs to balance work and motherhood and solidifies LAWL and its effectiveness—but, like managerialization, it places other concerns before those women's rights. While this was effective in engendering advocacy and better accommodation, it raises concern about the fictional right of the infant to breast milk. In broadening the target of the law, this morality rhetoric also obscures the health concerns of, and the legal rights of, the lactating workers themselves. Women's ability to make claims on the organization based on their own needs and rights disappear amid consideration of children's health.

In the immediate sense, as well as for the individual women who wish to express milk at work, the specific motivation for the lactation accommodations might not seem critical. The goal of LAWL was to improve working conditions for lactating women; therefore, an exploration of exactly why organizations create substantive accommodations might not seem important. However, in the longer run, understanding advocates' motivation may be critical for any discussion about policies to ameliorate gender parity and workplace equality.

Accommodations motivated only by managerial goals are a more precarious type of support; an organization's bottom line can change, and, when that happens, support for accommodations could disappear. Accommodations made for moral reasons are more stable. Additionally, morality-based motivations, like children's health, may be particularly critical when accommodations cannot align with managerial logic, such as pausing an entire work group or assembly line for a woman's lactation break.

Promoting children's welfare to further other issues is not unprecedented. Motivation regarding women's mothering duties and children has been used to further women's education (e.g., Reference Moehling and ThomassonMoehling & Thomasson, 2012), suffrage (e.g., Reference MorrisMorris,  2017), and government assistance (e.g., Reference Lemaitre and SandvikLemaitre & Sandvik, 2015). Yet while morality-motivated advocates' children-centered rhetoric could expand lactation accommodations in the workplace, furthering support of work/family issues—both arguably feminist goals—this motivation could perpetuate a view of women's first duty as being to their families.

Thus, on the one hand, the moralization of the law could result in more stable, longer-lasting organizational changes, more so than accommodations motivated by somewhat changeable managerial goals. Yet, while morality-motivated accommodations may be less precarious and may more deeply engrain progressive organizational changes, this could have macro-political effects that are very regressive. Although the goals of the law are progressive—greater workplace equality for women, facilitation of home-work harmony, and support for employed mothers—the shift to prioritizing children's health is also a shift away from these lactating employees' rights as workers and as women. By amplifying children's health concerns, law-focused rights and women's equality concerns might disappear entirely from the discussion.