Even as New York legislators weigh anew whether to mandate paid family leave, which nearly passed the Assembly last year, the federal government enacted changes this month to the Family and Medical Leave Act, with a mix of concessions to employees and businesses.
The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) was enacted in 1993 to give employees the right to take up to three months off from work on an unpaid basis to care for a newborn child, adopt a child, care for an ailing family member or recover from an injury or sickness.
The law does not apply to work sites in which a business has fewer than 50 employees within a 75-mile radius, and employees must have worked at a company at least a year to qualify.
In the New York state Assembly, the fledgling Working Families Party has been pushing for a law mandating paid family leave. As of this month, New Jersey businesses must allow workers up to six weeks of paid time off to care for a newborn or seriously sick relative. Connecticut is contemplating a similar bill in the two-year legislative session that kicked off in Hartford this month.
In 2005, about 7 percent of eligible employees nationally took unpaid leave under the FMLA, according to estimates by Consad Research Corp., a Pittsburgh-based company that prepared a report for the U.S. Department of Labor on the impact of the act. The Labor Department separately had determined that several industries are more vulnerable to FMLA furloughs than others, including food and accommodation services, health care and social services, and transportation. Without being able to quantify it, Consad theorized that occupations like health care that require a skilled work force are more adversely affected by extended absences under FMLA than occupations such as food services, where employers can quickly train temporary replacements.
For many local companies, the most significant change is a new allowance letting workers recovering from an injury or ailment perform light duties upon returning to work, reserving their jobs and receiving full pay until they are ready to take on their former duties.
The government also expanded FMLA for people with family members on active military duty, allowing them to take up to 26 weeks off if that relative is seriously wounded or sickened while on assignment; and allowing a worker up to 13 weeks off to help with day-to-day living arrangements for relatives in the military, such as child care.
Under FMLA, grandparents can take time off to provide child care for their grandchildren whose parent is serving on active military duty.
If the lower Hudson Valley”™s military population is in line with that of the rest of New York, then there are nearly 20,000 residents serving in the U.S. military; and large locally based companies such as IBM Corp. and PepsiCo Inc. have employees in facilities located outside the region who could be impacted by the military components of the new FMLA changes.
Not all family advocates are thrilled with the new changes. The National Partnership for Women and Families said the law gives employers more access to the health information of workers and their family members, potentially jeopardizing their medical privacy. The group says the changes make it harder for workers to use any paid leave under their employer”™s benefit plan, including standard vacations, while on FMLA furlough.
And according to Liberty Mutual Insurance Co., the government clarified that companies can dock their workers bonuses that would otherwise be awarded covering the time that worker takes leave under FMLA.
