Employee Rights And Responsibilities Under The Family Medical Leave Act

You get the phone call in the middle of the night. Your son or daughter has been in a serious accident and is hospitalized in critical condition. After several day’s they come home from the hospital with several broken bones and require your around the clock attention for the next eight to twelve weeks. You just got over a serious medical condition yourself which you acquired while on vacation and do not have any vacation time or sick time to take off. Do you have to quit your job? Can your employer terminate you for taking time off to be with your child? What options do you have? What can your employer do for you? Well, the answer lies in the Family and Medical Leave Act.

Employers can use the reference material found on the Department of Labor website called Find It By Audience-Employer to verify that their employee benefits comply with all federal laws.

This leave entitles employees to a 12 week unpaid leave within a 12 month period. It is 26 weeks for service men and women and their families. There are several components of this law that pertain to the number of employees, location of employees and the amount of time an employee has at their place of employment. Some employers may require you to use any accrued sick time, personal days or vacation time before the unpaid period

A growing number of states in the United State required a paid leave in addition to the federal regulations; states legislation requires employees to maintain their employment within certain time frame employment in order to accrue the sick leave hours. Additionally, the state’s regulation mandates that employees will not face any retaliation based on their medical condition

The Family and Medical Leave Act sets regulations for job-protected leave related to family and medical reasons. FMLA applies to organizations with 50 or more employees working within 75 miles of the employee’s worksite (“Employment Laws,” n.d., para. 6). Employees who have been with their current employer for 12 months and who have worked 1250 hours of service in the previous 12 months are eligible for 12 weeks of unpaid leave through FMLA (“Eligibility Requirements,” Revised 2013). FMLA covers the following leave reasons:

In 1993, the FMLA act, which serves the needs of families trying to balance work life and the needs of the families their working for, was established. This act was amended on October 8th, 2009 to extend entitlement rights of military caregivers.

All of the provisions of the FMLA were successfully met for this particular employee. FMLA allows 12 weeks of unpaid time off.

The Family and Medical Leave Act sets regulations for job-protected leave related to family and medical reasons. FMLA applies to organizations with 50 or more employees working within 75 miles of the employee’s worksite (“Employment Laws,” n.d., para. 6). Employees who have been with their current employer for 12 months and who have worked 1250 hours of service in the previous 12 months are eligible for 12 weeks of unpaid leave through FMLA (“Eligibility Requirements,” Revised 2013). FMLA covers the following leave reasons:

| In order for employee to be eligible, company must have a minimum of 50 employees working within a 75 mile radius of the plant.

An employee took time off due to his wife giving birth prematurely. His requested time off was approved by his original manager as the employee qualified for FMLA since he has been with the company for two years and was for the care of his spouse. Under (1)”FMLA rules certain employees can be provided up to 12 weeks unpaid, job-protected leave per year. The employee must work for the company at least 12 months, have at least 1250 hours during the 12 months and the where the employee work, the company must employ at least 50 employees within 75 miles”.

A vacation of two weeks after 12 months of service and within the following 10 months or, if the employee has been employed with the same employer longer than 8 years, a vacation of at least three weeks

PTO time will allow employees more flexibility when it comes to vacation time, emergencies, and even schedules events that require the individual to miss work. These twelve days will help the employee’s better plan his/ her vacation and other scheduled commitments and drastically reduce the number of unscheduled days off since all the days in one category instead of only allowing five sick days and seven vacation days. However, there will still be some days that the employees cannot request off in advance, but this policy would allow the employee a certain time period to tell the employer they cannot make it to work on a given day. By offering this type of time off structure, it will help the employer more time to plan and prepare for the staff shortage in a more efficient manner. Also, paid time off helps the employer and employee not have to differentiate what is acceptable and applicable to a holiday and sick day and it will help motivate the employees to not use a sick day unless he/ she is actually sick (Hulett, 2007). Therefore, if an employee is rarely sick, then that employee will have more vacation time to use

2. He must have at least 1250 hours of service with such employer during the 12-month period immediately before the leave.

 Time off is also allowed for childbirth, adoption, and to care for a sick child or family member.

     The Family and Medical Leave Act was enacted by Congress on February 5, 1993, and it is public law 103-3. This law allows for a person to leave work in certain situations without losing his/her job. An eligible employees must have worked for the employer for at least 12 months and at least completed 1250 hours of service. An employee is able to leave work for up to 12 weeks for any of the following reasons: the employee expects a baby in his/her immediate family, the employee expects an adopted child in his/her immediate family, the employee has to take care of an ill family member which includes spouse, parent or his/her own children, and/or the employee has a serious medical