Family Medical Leave Act 1993: Discovering Pertinent Labor Issues
Law Synopsis
The Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA), which became effective in August 5, 1993, applies to companies with an employee base of 50 persons or higher. The statute provides for the allowance accorded by employers to their employees in taking leaves of absence for twelve weeks within a twelve month working period for the following reasons: child birth and neonatal care, child placement due to foster care or adoption, serious illness of spouse, children or parents, and serious health condition of the employee preventing him/her from performing essential employment functions. Since the implementation of the statute several issues have been raised by employers and employees alike covering the applicability of the law and the consistency of its provisions with other employment welfare legislations. (, 2006)
Current Issues on the Employer’s Side
A study conducted by the (2006) to evaluate the operation of the Family Medical Leave Act 1993 showed that the statute pose administrative burdens for employers especially in the area of record-keeping and coordinated compliance together with other labor laws. Apart from this, reports from employers have also shown dramatic increases in the absences of employees for brief periods of time indicating that the reasons for doing so may not be as serious as the situations contemplated by the law.
These issues on the part of the employers imply that they view the law as administratively burdensome through the requirement of certification and recertification as needed in the processing of the leave request from employees. With the increasing number of requests, the employer needs to allocate company time and even added personnel in the human resources departments together with the need to obtain temporary workers to take the place of the employee on leave for the duration of the employment. These burdens may already exist because of the operation of labor laws enacted earlier than the FMLA but the burden becomes heavier with the compliance requirements provided by the statute. (, 2006)
In consideration of these employer issues, Congress passed bills intending to simplify the operation of the law in relation to administrative burdens to employers. These bills include recommendations to narrow the definition of the factors considered as serious health conditions to validly support a leave application, establishment of minimum leave requirements of half-day in order to prevent leaves for non-serious reasons, and the increasing of the requirements of notification from employees. (, 2006) Although these bills were accorded a non-priority status in Congress, the emergence or re-emergence of these issues in the future would support their enactment, if these issues become relevant in the future.
Current Issues on the Employee’s Side
The provisions of the Family Medical Leave Act cover the application of law to different situations. Serious illnesses as justification for the leave application include injury, impairment, injury, physical or mental health condition, and continued treatment done by a health care provider. During the duration of the leave, the employer is obliged to maintain the employee’s coverage under the health plan. After the duration of the leave, the employer must take the employee back restoring him or her to the same or a similar job. (, 2006) An issue arises in the accommodation of employees returning from their leave. Since the law requires the employer to restore employee to the same position, this creates a situation that could be beneficial or non-beneficial to the employee depending upon the situation. This benefits the employee, when the employer allows the former to do a reasonably lighter work due to an injury, disability or the inability to temporarily or completely perform pervious tasks. This does not benefit the employee, when the employer expects the employee perform the same tasks prior to the injury or serious illness despite the inability of the employee to comply. This implies that this provision of the law is open to abuse requiring the employer to seek existing modes of redress.
Moreover, the (2006) provides that employers may not require an employee eligible under the FMLA to agree to a reasonable accommodation instead of taking leave. Again, this may work to the advantage as well as the disadvantage of employees depending on their level of information regarding the options available to them and their degree of assertion of their interests. On one hand, employers may opt to recommend an option that offers the least burdens to the company even if this may not work to the best advantage of the employee. If the employee accedes due to lack of knowledge about other options or the merits of available options, the law opens the possibility of employers taking advantage of their employees. On the other hand, well-informed employees able to identify the options and weigh the merits of these alternatives may assert the option that best serve their interests based on the assumption that all the options do not defeat the rights of the employers or other employees. In this instance, the operation of law allows the employee to negotiate application to a different accommodation or take leave.
In addition, seeking redress for violations of the law proves to be difficult for employees. FMLA was assigned to the US Department of Labor’s Employment Standards Administration particularly the Wage and Hour Division together with the responsibility to investigate violations. Upon satisfactory proof of violation, the division files a court action in behalf of the employee. An employee with a valid compliant have the option to bring a civil action directly in court but it cannot file a compliant with the division without first filing the civil action. (, 2006) This implies that employees with grievances have to first go to the courts before seeking redress from the division despite the primary responsibility of the division of investigating violations giving it the best position to settle complaints.
Conclusion
Overall, the rationale of enacting labor legislations suffices to justify the viability of the legislation despite the issues that have arisen on the side of both employers employees. Despite the claims of employers that many of them provide more than adequate benefits to their employees, the fact remains that there are still employers implementing the barest minimum in terms of employee benefits. The disparity in the benefits accorded by different employers required legal intervention in enhancing the required benefits to improve the standing of employees. The important consideration is ensuring adequate benefits and the implementation of the law is justified by this objective. Despite the issues raised by employees, the legislation has improved the general condition of employees but there is need to direct their issues towards legislative reform channels in order to enhance the law.
References
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