Introduction
The Family and Medical Leave Act is a federal law in the United States of America that requires all covered employers to provide to employees unpaid and job-protected leaves whenever there arises medical and family reasons (Budd et al. 2003). Such reasons may include, among others: pregnancy, illnesses, adoption and family military leave. This law is administered by the State’s Wage and Hour Division.
Enactment date
This bill was signed into law on 5th, 1993, taking effect on 1993, August 5th. During Bill Clinton’s first term in office, the bill was a major agenda. The intention was to find a good balance between workplace needs and family-life needs. Over the years, the two needs were overlapping, giving workers a hard time to balance. According to its provisions, eligible employees are allowed to take a maximum of12 weeks of leave that is unpaid to attend to serious issues that may warrant one to be absent from taking their duties in the workplace. One precondition for the leave to materialize is that the employee must have worked in the business for more than 12 months. This law targets both the private-sector and public-sector employees. Although the argument is that the law covers all employees in the country, some categories of employees are excluded. Officials that are elected by citizens and their staff members are excluded from this law (Budd et al. 2003).
Parameters, rules and regulations of the Act
There are basic parameters that one must meet in order to qualify for the mandate of FMLA. For instance, one is required to be employed with more than 50 employees, all within a radius of 75 miles from the worksite. For one to qualify, they must also prove that they have worked in the workplace for at least twelve months for the employer in question. One is not required to have consecutively worked in the twelve months provided. However, one must prove that in the last 12 months, they have worked for a minimum of 1250 hours. Some airline employees, however, have special hour rules (Budd et al. 2003).
As already argued above, FMLA serves to give the employees an opportunity to address many issues. The benefits that the employees get from this law cannot be underrated. For instance, one can get adequate time to recover from serious illnesses. When such is the case, the employee will not worry about his employment status as they are protected by the law. Persons who need time to cater for injured family members and close relatives are also eligible to apply for to be accorded the leave. Such benefits were hard to come by before the bill was enacted into law. Employee protection was done mostly by the civil groups who lacked adequate legal backing. With the law in place, the employers have a task to ensuring that the employee’s needs are catered for.
The Family and Medical Leave Act directs employers to give provide for employees a number of benefits. In doing so, uniformity is always paramount. The law requires that whether or not an employee is on leave, they should be accorded health insurance benefits similar to those of other employees, including the contributions to premiums by employers. This gives the employees the necessary balance in that those who are on leave are equally treated like those who are on duty. Upon completing the leave, the employer has a responsibility to restore an employee to a similar position he/she was in before going for the leave. In case such a position is not available, the employer should ensure they put the employee in a position which has equal benefits, pay and responsibilities to those the employee was subjected to before going for the leave. What this implies is that an employee should be reinstated or entitled to all the benefits they enjoyed in the workplace before they left for the leave. Employers are prohibited from interfering with the rights of employees who are on leave as they should be treated equally to the employees who are on duty (Fisher, 2007). Because it’s a statutory right, employers are barred from retaliating against employees who decide to exercise such a right as provided by the Act. All these provisions are essential in protecting employees from being mishandled y the employers.
The Act clearly stipulates the employees who are eligible to be granted this benefit. This means that some employees should never be allowed to exercise their right if they have not met the required threshold. Businesses that have employees who do not exceed fifty people are exempted from the Act. However, this threshold is not applicable in local education agencies and public agency employers. This is essential in order to protect the operation of such businesses from collapsing due to a few number of employees that may be available at a given time. As stated, a worker must have worked for more than 1250 hours in the last 12 months they have been with the employer, preceding the application for the leave. Essentially, this ensures that workers do not take advantage of the right to this leave to sabotage the operations of the businesses. This Act does not provide for leave to cater for relatives who do not form part of the first family, however ill they may seem. This is also the case with workers who require some time to have routine medical check-ups and care. Although the Act was meant to strengthen the rights the employees have in the workplace, it seeks to find a suitable balance between employers and employees. This is crucial if development in the workplace is to be achieved.
How the Federal and State Statute compare
The Family and Medical Leave Laws may differ from one state to another. Whereas the federal statute gives the basic outline of the shape that the law should take, several states have slightly differed in the provisions of the law. For the purpose of this assignment, I will give a comparison of the Federal Family and Medical Leave Laws and the laws as stipulated in the state of Wisconsin.
In practice, employers are required to comply with the provisions of local or state law that offers greater leave rights compared to the ones that the federal Family and Medical Leave Act provides for. Essential to note is the fact that America’s Labor Department does not enforce the state leave laws. On a similar note, states are not obligated to enforce the federal FMLA laws (Fisher, 2007). Because this is the case, employees do not have any obligation of designating the leave they are taking, whether federal or state. This has a direct impact on the employers in that they have to comply with both state and federal provisions if they are covered by both FMLA rules.
The state of Wisconsin has a number of differences to the state FMLA rules. The first difference between the two is in regard to the employers that are covered (Fisher, 2007). According to the federal state rules, employers covered should have more than 50 employees in more than 20 weeks of the preceding or the current year. This is the only way a business will be covered by the federal state rules on the leave. The Wisconsin rules, on the other hand, require that the employer should have more than 50 employees (the 50 employees should be permanent in this case). The employees must have been present in the workplace for at least six calendar months.
There is a difference between the state rules and the federal rules in terms of the employees that are eligible for the leave. According to the federal rules, an eligible employee ought to have worked for the employer for more than 1250 hours in the last 12 months before seeking for the leave. An employee is only eligible if they have been employed for more than 12 months. This is very different from the state laws of Wisconsin. Instead of the federal requirement of 1250 hours, the state rules require one to have worked for more than 1000 hours in the last 52 weeks. In such a case, the state laws are more flexible and suitable for employees as the employees have an opportunity to ask for the leave after working for fewer hours when compared to the federal laws (Fisher, 2007).
The federal and state laws also differ in terms of the amount of leave that the employees can get (Fisher, 2007). As per the federal rules, the employee can be accorded a leave of up to 12 weeks in a period of 12 months. The federal rules further stipulate that in case spouses share an employer, leaves such as those for birth, caring for sick parents and adoption should be shared. The state rules are very different on this aspect. In a period of 12 months, the amount of leave one gets depends on the type of leave they seek. For instance, employees are given a leave of six weeks for adoption or birth. For the care of a spouse, an employee will be given up to two weeks. This means that whereas the federal rules have a fixed amount of leave, the state laws first determine the type of leave one wants before stipulating the amount.
Impact of the laws on the workplace
The 1993 enacted Family and Medical Leave Act was meant to protect the employees who pursued unpaid leaves for reasons ranging from medical to family. Although organizations and employers have followed and supported the spirit of the FMLA, they are at times put in difficult situations. The impact the rules bring about may be positive or negative, depending on the approach that one gives the rules.
Some of the FMLA provisions are favorable to employees, while others are favorable to employers. Over the past, Human Resource Managers have complained about some FMLA’s stipulations, more so the ones that relate to health conditions that are serious. It is difficult for an employer to determine whether the leave the employee seeks is based on genuine grounds. This has always encouraged employees to seek such leaves even when they do not need one. Some employees take the leaves to have free time to address other issues that are not important. This is because they believe they are protected by the rules; hence they have nothing to worry about. This affects work performance in the workplace because of the reduction in the number of available workers. Employees who come from leaves also tend to be sluggish in performing their duties. This means that the employers will accord them more time to settle and adapt to any changes that were effected in the workplace while they were absent. This affects the workplace negatively. At times, key employees in the workplace request for this leave. When this happens, employers have to find suitable candidates to replace them in the short period they are absent. This affects the workplace in that it is difficult to find a like-to-like candidate to replace the employees in the short period required.
Example of a case
In the United States of America, there are many cases where the courts have used the Family and Medical Leave Act to make decisions. In such situations, employers have been accused of practices that violate the FMLA and as such, legal actions have been taken against them. The Act stipulates that an employee can sue for damages and other equitable reliefs whenever they feel aggrieved by the employers. The Act was used in the case of Nero v. Industrial Molding Corp (Vogel, 2012). In this case, the court held that ‘even if a trial court is satisfied that an employer acted both in good faith and reasonably, it may still award liquidated damages at its discretion in any amount up to that allowed.’ (Vogel, 2012, p. 115) This is a good example of where the company’s failure to reinstate a worker cost them a lot of money. According to the facts provided to the court, Michael Nero had worked as a plant manager for the company in question. While an employee of the company, Nero suffered a heart attack, prompting him to take a medical leave. When he recovered, the company prevented him from joining the workforce of. In this case, the court employed the FMLA to rule in favor of the employee.
References
Budd, J. W., & Brey, A. M. (2003). Unions and Family Leave: Early Experience under the Family and Medical Leave Act. Labor Studies Journal, 28(3), 85-105.
Fisher, J. (2007). Reconciling the Family Medical Leave Act With Overlapping or Conflicting State Leave Laws. Compensation & Benefits Review, 39(5), 39-45.
Vogel, L. (2012). Considering Difference: The Case of the U.S. Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993. Social Politics, 2(1), 111-120.
