President Bush has signed into law legislation that expands Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) coverage for family members of employees called for military service. The expansion, included in a broader Department of Defense spendingmeasure, requires employers to offer up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave to employees when a spouse, child or parent is on active duty or is called up for active duty. Leave could be for any “exigency” as defined by regulations to be drafted by the U.S. Labor Department.
Additionally, the new law allows employees who are the spouses, children, parents or next of kin of a service member to take up to 26 weeks of leave under the FMLA to care for the service member who incurred an injury during military service when that injury results in the service member being unable to perform his or her duties. The expansion is the first for the 1993 law, which requires employers to allow employees to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave after the birth or adoption of a child, to care for a sick child, parent or spouse or when an employee has a serious illness. The new provisions are effective immediately.
Other Regulations Proposed
On January 24, the Department of Labor sent proposed changes to the FMLA regulations to the White House's Office of Management and Budget. The text of the changes has not been released, but it is reported that employees would need to notify their employer in advance of the need for leave, and would no longer have one or two business days after missing work as currently provided in the regs.
Instead the proposed regulations would:
(1) require employees to give employers notice before talking leave, with exceptions for extenuating circumstances, and
(2) allow employers to require an employee to provide an annual recertification from a doctor that the employee has a “serious health condition.”
DOL declined, however, to narrow the definition of a serious health condition, as some employer groups had hoped.
The proposed regulations could be published in the Federal Register in February, 2008. The DOL anticipates that the regs will be finalized before the end of the year.
The text of the FMLA, with the changes in bold italics, can be reviewed: http://www.dol.gov/esa/whd/fmla/fmlaAmended.htm
The DOL FMLA page can be viewed at : http://www.dol.gov/esa/whd/fmla/
The FEA Legal Services Department will provide an update on the FMLA regulations upon dissemination along with the other proposed changes to the FMLA regulations.
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