> I think we need the lawyers imput on this one.  It seems to me that if she has
> been permitted to bring her child to work in the past and to breastfeed the
> child at work, that they are now walking on pretty thin ice to say that it is
> not OK now.  "WHY" is it not OK now?  Because some member complained?
>  The precident has been set that it is OK to nurse at work, unless they have a
> written policy that nursing beyond the age of a certain number of months is
> not permitted, I do not think they can willy nilly decide when it is not OK.
>  I suggest she take two "to whom it may concern" letters to work.  One from
> her doctor that says that breastfeeding is medically superior for the
> infant.(hopefully s/he would agree) and one from a attorney that the
> permission to breastfeed has been granted in the past and to arbitrarily
> remove that permisson now is discriminatory.
>
> Jon Ahrendsen MD

Actually, employers have a frightening amount of power of employees in the
U.S., and employees have almost no say in their working conditions.  Unless
the discrimination is on the basis of race, sex, religion, age [I doubt the
child's age counts, BTW], or disabled status, employer's can discriminate to
their heart's content and can impose ridiculous and arbitrary conditions at
work.  (One other "unless": unless she is covered by a collective bargaining
agreement that permits her to file a grievance with a union, but that's pretty
unlikely in to be the case for a health club employee.)

This is a matter that she is going to have to work out on an interpersonal
level, since the law gives her no leverage whatsoever.  I've remained silent
until now because (as many of you may know by now) working things out amicably
is *not* my strong point, and that kind of advice is what is needed here.

J. Rachael Hamlet
Owner, Lactivist Mailing List
Author, The Breastfeeding Advocacy Page
http://www.clark.net/pub/activist/bfpage/bfpage.html