Maine Minimum Wage Increases & New Required Notice for Nursing Mothers

South Portland, Maine, USA at the Portland Breakwater Light.

2020 Minimum Wage Rates

Employers in the State of Maine must soon pay their employees increased wages. Effective January 1, 2020:

  • The minimum wage increases to $12.00 per hour.
  • The tipped wage increases to $6.00 per hour.
  • The minimum salary requirement will be $692.31.

The updated Minimum Wage notice has a revision date of 11/19.

Nursing Mothers in the Workplace

Maine’s Nursing Mothers in the Workplace Law passed in 2009, but the Nursing Mothers notice, which has a revision date of 11/19, was only recently added to the state’s required posters list.

The notice outlines essential information for employees and employers related to nursing mothers’ rights in the workplace.

For three years after the birth of a child, employers of nursing mothers must:

  • Provide them with adequate unpaid break time, or a paid break or mealtime, to express milk each day.
  • Make reasonable efforts to provide them with a clean room or space, other than a bathroom, to express milk in privacy.

However, an employer may be exempted from these requirements if they would cause a substantial disruption to the employer’s operations.

The notice includes additional ways employers can support nursing mothers, as well as helpful tips for mothers to make expressing milk in the workplace easier.

New Information for People with Disabilities

The following language has recently been added to almost all of Maine’s required workplace notices:

The Maine Department of Labor provides equal opportunity
in employment and programs. Auxiliary aids and services
are available to people with disabilities upon request.

We Make Compliance Easy!

If you have not already done so, we encourage you to order our 1-Year Compliance Plan, so that you will automatically receive the updated Maine poster as soon as it is available. And because we provide free poster updates for mandatory changes, no matter how many occur during the plan year, you can always count on Poster Compliance Center to keep your business in compliance.