Oregon Family Leave Act Case Study

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.

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

Therefore, PTO is a bank of days from which employees can draw for vacation, sick leave, doctor's appointments and personal days off from work. In contrast, customary leave programs allot a specified number of days for vacation and sick time. Hence, moving from a traditional leave program to a PTO system has many advantages, including reducing unscheduled absences, and the costs and productivity losses associated with them. Also, making an employer more attractive to current and potential employees, especially those who value discretionary time off; reducing administrative/compliance costs, as PTO use no longer requires validation in most instances; and empowering employees to make their own decisions regarding the amount of vacation and personal time spent away from work, which contrast with employer-controlled sick time and vacation programs (Warford, 2014).

Employees with legitimate reasons have the right to take leave without any restraint from his or her employer. This means that an employer cannot interfere or deny an employee of family and medical leave if that person meets the criteria. The act grants people several rights. Upon return, these workers should have either the same job position or one that is equivalent to their previous job. The job security aspect of this act is a huge benefit. Workers returning from leave do not have to worry about being replaced or fired for taking the necessary leave. Family and medical leave can be used once each year if necessary. Group health benefits are protected and maintained while on leave as well. If a person has a complaint or wants to file a private lawsuit under the act, he or she can take it up with the local Wage and Hour Division office and does not have to worry about being fired. These matters are handled privately and the Wage and Hour Division Office will work on getting the issue resolved or correcting the violation and mending the damage (Solis).

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:

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

Paid time off (PTO) is the employer pools sick days, vacation days, and personal days that allows the employees to utilize upon need. this policy pertains mainly in USA as such no legal requirement for minimum number of paid vacation days. the PTO works best in the culture and accountable employee’s environment existing. US companies determine the amount off the pay day off that will be allocated to each employee. In general way PTO system cover, everything from planned vacation to sick leaves .and are becoming more common in human resources management. unlike traditional more plans leave, PTO doesn’t distinguish employee’s absences from personal days or vacation days or sick days. per study conducted in 2010 by WorldatWork, 44% of 387 companies surveyed said they started using PTO bank-type plans prior to year 2000. (Wikipedia -paid of time).

 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

Cherner (2008) asserts that the FMLA grants up to 12 weeks of leave during a 12-month period for a number of qualifying reasons mentioned previously as well as for an employee’s own serious health condition and certain "qualifying exigencies" related

The lack of a paid parental leave law in the country does not necessarily mean that it is absent in the U.S. labor market. Some generous and more progressive companies do recognize the importance of the leave to employees and do offer it. According to the Employee Benefits Survey of 2015, 21% of employers nationally offer some paid maternity leave while 17% offer some paid paternity/adoption leave. However, about a fifth don’t have any kind of protected maternity, paternity, or adoptive leave. (Ray, 8; Time, n. pag.)

The latter change is particularly noteworthy, as it now entitles Ontario employees to 10 personal emergency leave (PEL) days in a calendar year, with the first two being paid equal to the wages earned if an employee wasn’t absent. Previously, the criteria for taking PEL days only applied to employees in workplaces with more than 50 employees and were unpaid for PEL.

Temporary workers are also are entitled to legal rights under the employment rights act (1996) and the Agency workers regulations (2010) such as: equal working conditions, holiday leave entitlement which is usually with the same amount of days as a fixed term/permanent employee pro-rata, the 48 hours a week working time regulations and the 12 week qualifying period”.

Paid time off (PTO) is the system employer use to accumulate all kind of leaves as sick days, vacation days, and personal days that allows the employees to use upon need. this policy works mostly in the USA as such no legal obligation for a minimum number of paid vacation days. the PTO works best in the culture and accountable employee’s environment existing. US company’s regulator the amount off the pay day off that will be allocated to each employee. a general way, PTO system cover, everything from planned vacation to sick leaves .and are becoming more common in human resources management. unlike traditional more plans leave, PTO doesn’t distinguish employee’s absences from personal days or vacation days or sick days. Studies show that majority of the companies start using PTO system prior to the year 2000.