The Family Leave Act

Parents who lose wages while they take time off are protected by the Paid Family Leave Act (PFL), as California provides income replacement in order for them to bond with their newborn or newly adopted child. PFL offers six weeks of partial pay in order to care for the child, financially. According to website, paidfamilyleave.org the partial pay is 55 percent of the worker’s usual salary. PFL does not guarantee job protection as the parent has to qualify for the California Family Rights Act. In the article 10 Things You Need to Know About Maternity Leave in the US, it states, “According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 12 percent of Americans have access to the paid parental leave, which is considered a benefit by employers,” demonstrating that only certain employees receive paid parental leave as

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.

The company in which employee A works for is considered a covered employer because the company employs more than fifty employees for which is assumed for more than twenty weeks each year. Employee A has worked for the covered employer for two years, which makes him a covered employee based on the given information. Employee A was not required to give advanced notice due to the unforeseen circumstances of the premature birth. Upon employee A’s return, he was given his original job back along with the same rate of pay. Since employee A took leave under the FMLA, his leave is considered unpaid and the eleven weeks of pay are not required to be given to the employee. In the case of employee A, no violation has been committed.

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:

The balancing act of family and work can be very difficult at times. At some point in everyone’s life, he or she will need to take time off of work to deal with family matters. The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) of 1993 was created to help employees find a balance between the challenging demands of work and home. This Act allows eligible workers that require time off for personal reasons or family emergencies up to twelve weeks of unpaid leave.

The FMLA entitles eligible employees the ability to take off up to 12 weeks of unpaid time off within a 12-month period with the benefit of job protection upon returning to the company. The time off is subject to specific criteria that must meet federal guidelines. The website www.dol.gov lists these five leave entitlements.

In this given situation the Employee’s FMLA right was satisfied when he was granted the leave. The Employee met all requirements to be granted leave because he was with a company that had over 50 employees for over 2 years. The 2 years that customer worked satisfied the requirement of working a total of 12 months before leave can be granted. Also, since the Employee’s leave was for birth care that was a valid reason for asking for the leave.

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:

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”.

The Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) was passed with the idea of creating job protected leave when necessary, while also providing employees with the opportunity to balance work, health, and family responsibilities. FMLA is designed to avoid job loss when employees request additional time off in order to treat a critical medical condition or deal with serious family or personal matters. Due to the establishment of FMLA, workers can now maintain employment as they treat qualifying medical conditions, care for a close relative, bond with newborn, etc. In other words, the concept of FMLA was for employers to legally support their workers during life’s challenging circumstances. Although many positive outcomes are a result of this law, administering FMLA has turned into a challenging and complex task for employers. Passing this law triggered many unintended consequences that have tremendously affected the way organizations manage their leave of absence policies. Employee abuse of this privilege is a major issue employers are being faced with. The impact FMLA leave has on the entire company, including quality, performance, and productivity can be dramatic. These unplanned concerns that now exist due to FMLA provide tremendous amounts of stress for the employers to properly manage the law; FMLA has turned into a problem employers are defenseless against.

     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

Pregnancy and early child development is a fundamental aspect of human society, and is pertinent to the development of a successfully functioning community. The developmental and social progress of any civilization relies on children, as they will compose the future working population. Therefore, a mother or father’s involvement in the child’s development is of extreme importance, which is why family leave has been implemented all over the world. Family leave refers to the period of time granted to the employee to care for their newborn child. As communities evolve economically, financial stability is necessary, for what is perceived to be socially successful for a child’s development, which is why paid family leave is popular throughout the world’s nations. However, ABC News reports that “the U.S. is only one of three countries in the world that don't offer paid maternity leave” (Kim, 2015); the same is true for paternity leave. The United States government has an interesting track record dealing with family leave, but in order to analyze what the US government and advocacy groups have done to solve this issue, there first needs to be an understanding on why this issue is so difficult to resolve. The arguments that support and oppose paid family leave in the United States are equally valid, therefore causing a stalemate in the attempted policy making of legislative bodies.

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 Family and Medical Aid Act (FLMA), of 1993, provides for 12 weeks of unpaid, job protected leave for certain specified events (8). Whilst one could refer to this as maternity or paternity leave if taken because of a pregnancy, this would not be strictly true. Where maternity and paternity leave are offered around the

A Critical Analysis of; Alexander, Renata (2010) "Moving Forwards Or Back to the Future? An Analysis of Case Law on Family Violence Under the Family Law Act 1975