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Read. Follow. Verify.Wisconsin SB 1131 requires employers to provide lactation breaks and accommodations for nursing employees
Last action · March 23, 2026: Failed to pass pursuant to Senate Joint Resolution 1Sponsors: Dianne Hesselbein and 26 others
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What This Bill Proposed
This bill requires all employers in Wisconsin with at least one employee to provide nursing mothers with reasonable break time and a private, non-bathroom space to express breast milk for children under one year old. The measure also mandates access to an electrical outlet, running water, and a refrigerator, while protecting employees from discrimination or retaliation for exercising these rights.
Changes workplace compliance obligations for employers across the state, ensuring that nursing employees retain health care coverage eligibility during unpaid lactation breaks and establishing administrative penalties and legal remedies for workplace interference.
Who It Would Have Affected
Groups the bill's text would have affected, as described in the record. Being affected is not a position for or against it.
Employees who are breastfeeding a child under one year of age
Employees receive guaranteed break times, private non-bathroom spaces, and specific facility access to express breast milk, along with protections against workplace discrimination.
Employers employing at least one individual
Employers must provide reasonable break times, designated private spaces, electrical outlets, running water, and a refrigerator, while maintaining health care eligibility calculations for unpaid breaks.
Key Facts
- Applies to any employer engaging in any activity, enterprise, or business employing at least one individual, including the state and local governments.
- Mandates a reasonable break time each time an employee needs to express breast milk for a child under one year of age.
- Requires a private space other than a bathroom that is shielded from view and free from intrusion by coworkers and the public.
- Requires access to an electrical outlet, running water, and a refrigerator for milk storage.
Show all 9 facts
- Allows employers to provide unpaid break time unless the employee is not completely relieved from duty during the break.
- Requires employers to treat unpaid lactation break time as paid work time when determining an employee's eligibility for health care coverage contributions.
- Exempts employers with fewer than 50 permanent employees if compliance would pose an undue hardship causing significant difficulty or expense.
- Prohibits interfering with lactation rights or discharging and discriminating against employees who take breaks or enforce their rights.
- Permits aggrieved employees to file complaints with the department to be processed in the same manner as employment discrimination complaints.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which employers must comply with these lactation accommodation rules?
Are employers required to pay employees during lactation breaks?
What happens to small businesses that cannot afford to install accommodations?
What else do you want to know?
News Coverage
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Votes, people, money & the original sourceWhere This Stands
This bill did not become law - Failed in the Senate.
Procedural history
3 actions- Mar 23, 2026SenateFailed to pass pursuant to Senate Joint Resolution 1
- Mar 19, 2026SenateIntroducedRead first time and referred to Committee on Government Operations, Labor and Economic Development
- Mar 19, 2026SenateIntroducedIntroduced by Senators Hesselbein, Smith, Dassler-Alfheim, Larson, Ratcliff, Roys and Spreitzer; cosponsored by Representatives Subeck, DeSanto, Bare, Brown, Clancy, Emerson, Hysell, Joers, McCarville, Miresse, Moore Omokunde, Neubauer, Prado, Rivera-Wagner, Sinicki, Snodgrass, Stroud, Stubbs, Vining and Palmeri
Version history
Only one version on file - nothing to compare yet. As later stages (committee substitute, engrossed, enrolled) are captured, the redline appears here.
View official text →Lobbying Activity
No state lobbying filings in our records match this bill. Federal lobbying reports (LDA) cover Congress, so they are not listed on state bills.
Full breakdown
Who this bill affects and the strongest case for and against it, written only from the bill’s own text.
Sponsors
Show 22 more sponsors
Discoveries
Patterns POLISCOPE noticed across the record. These are observations to investigate, not conclusions.
Codification of Federal Standards into State Law
The bill explicitly codifies existing federal Fair Labor Standards Act lactation accommodation mandates into Wisconsin state statutes while adding state-level enforcement mechanisms.
Connected Entities
Sources
docs.legis.wisconsin.gov
Analysis Score
0–100- Significance20Lowered because this bill did not pass (its text scored 75)
- Controversy40Intensity of disagreement among stakeholders
- Entertainment5Compellingness for a non-policy-wonk reader
- Buzz35Current news / social attention level
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