By Shayna Jacobs
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MIDTOWN EAST — A Midtown mammography office illegally fired a new mother from her job for pumping milk at work, a complaint filed Thursday said.
Former medical receptionist Yadiris Rivera, 28, who worked at Manhattan Medical Imaging, returned to the Madison Avenue office in April 2009 after her daughter Erin was born with plans to pump breast milk three times a day.
But after six months of pumping breast milk at work — in the bathroom, rather than a sanitary facility as the law stipulates — the office manager told Rivera that she would have to stop, telling her it was an inconvenience to the others in the office, according to the complaint, which was filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
"I felt that I should never have to choose between my daughter's well-being and my job," Rivera said in an interview.
The six-year employee was fired on Feb. 16, 2010 after the New York Civil Liberties Union called Rivera's boss to inform them that the receptionist was legally protected from breastfeeding discrimination in the workplace.
"Of course things got a little worse after that," Rivera said.
An employer must try to find a private place for a new mother to pump breast milk for up to three years after the birth of her child in New York State, according to a law passed in 2007.
But the new mother was told to use another woman's office space with the woman present if she was unhappy using the bathroom, Rivera said.
"I told them that it was very uncomfortable," Rivera said. "I felt deep inside that it can't be right a person expressing milk for their daughter in the bathroom."
Rivera, whose daughter is now 14 months old, is still unemployed and is seeking back pay and damages from the medical office.
The company had not responded to requests for comment by the time of publication.
