Welcome to the third installment in this series on Wage and Hour issues. In our last blog, we reviewed minimum wage and today, we’ll discuss FMLA.
The Family & Medical Leave Act protects workers who are living with a serious health condition that makes the employee unable to perform the essential functions of his or her job – and/or who have specified family reasons – by providing them with unpaid, job-protected leave. If the employee qualifies for FMLA by having worked at least 1250 hours for an employer who employs at least 50 individuals within 75 miles of the job site, he or she may receive 12 work-weeks of leave in a 12-month period for the reasons listed below.
- the birth of a child and to care for the newborn child within one year of birth;
- the placement with the employee of a child for adoption or foster care and to care for the newly placed child within one year of placement;
- to care for the employee’s spouse, child, or parent who has a serious health condition.
There is also 12 weeks of FMLA coverage for any qualifying issue arising from the covered active military duty of an employee’s spouse, son, daughter, or parent. Alternatively, 26 weeks of coverage during a single 12-month period is allowed for an employee to care for a spouse, son, daughter, parent, or next of kin who is a covered service member with a serious injury or illness.
The most frequent questions we receive are related to the following:
- What does job-protected leave mean? It means that the employer must restore employees to their same or an equivalent job when their leave ends.
- Do I still need to pay for benefits for FMLA workers? Yes. Under FMLA, it’s like the employee never left, so you would continue to pay for group health insurance coverage under the same terms and conditions as if the employee had not taken leave. However, under most circumstances, the employee is responsible for paying the normal employee portion of the insurance premium to maintain insurance coverage. We find that that employees never understand this part.
Considerable detail for employers is contained in the downloadable Employer’s Guide to the Family and Medical Leave Act. There you will learn about specific qualifications, notices and other administrative procedures. Hope to see you for Part 4 of our blog series where we discuss enforcement of Wage & Hour issues.