Family & Medical Leave Act Passed in 1993
Some Customer Service Professionals are having trouble understanding how to use FMLA leave. Your employer must have 50 or more employees working within 75 miles. To be eligible for FMLA leave, you must have worked for at least one year and for 1,250 hours over the 12-months prior to your leave. If you and your employer meet these requirements, and your leave is otherwise eligible (see below), the FMLA guarantees you 12 work weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave per year. Although FMLA leave is unpaid, you may be eligible under your contract or your employer’s policy to ask that paid leave be substituted for unpaid FMLA leave. However, your total FMLA leave will not exceed 12 weeks per year.
What is FMLA Leave
Eligible reasons for FMLA leave:
- Birth of a child and newborn childcare.
- Adoption or placement of a child through foster care.
- Care of a spouse, parent or a child under 18 who have a serious health condition.
- Care of a child over 18 with mental or physical disabilities.
- A serious health condition that makes the employee unable to perform his/her job.
Serious Health Condition: Any period of illness, injury or medical incapacity that involves one or more of the following: (1) inpatient hospital care; (2) any medical condition lasting more than 3 consecutive calendar days that involves continuing treatment by a health care provider; (3) pregnancy; (4) a chronic, long-term or permanently disabling health condition requiring periodic treatment; (5) a medical condition requiring multiple treatments to prevent a period of incapacity lasting more than three consecutive calendar days.
Time Off: FMLA leave can be taken in blocks of time (e.g., hours, days or weeks) or intermittently if the condition involved is a chronic serious health condition that has been documented by a health care provider (e.g., asthma, epilepsy, cancer requiring multiple chemotherapy treatments, reconstructive surgery following an accident). The employer is entitled to request medical certification from a healthcare provider prior to approving FMLA leave and may deny the leave if appropriate documentation is not provided within the time frame requested.
Notice: An employee must provide 30 days advance notice of the need for FMLA leave if the need for leave is foreseeable. If the need for leave cannot be determined in advance, notice must be given as soon as practical (usually within 1 or 2 business days). Your employer may require medical certification from the health care provider prior to approving FMLA leave. You have at least 15 calendar days to submit such information.
Pregnancy: Any period of incapacity due to pregnancy or for pre-natal care can be used in hours or single days. If a woman is out on FMLA leave after the birth of a child and makes the decision to resign while out on FMLA leave, the employer has the right to charge her for the cost of the health care premiums for the period she was out of work on FMLA leave. Check the employer’s policy, your contract, or ask your steward. When both parents work for the same employer, FMLA leave for childcare is limited to 12 weeks shared between them.
Release Forms: The employer may require the employee to sign a release form to have medical information released about the serious health condition for which FMLA leave is being requested. You are not obligated to sign a release asking for any other medical information. ( Some employers have been using this form to get private medical information about employees that they are not entitled to obtain). If form does not limit the release to the condition causing need for the current leave, you may write “for this illness/injury only” on the form before signing and initial the handwritten statement you have added.
Employer Obligations: Your employer is required to give or mail to you a written notice designating or provisionally designating your leave under the FMLA, explaining your specific FMLA rights and obligations and providing any medical certification forms you need to have completed by your health care provider and submitted to the employer.
Contract Language: Each contract may contain different language about your leave rights. Be sure to look at your contract, and/or ask your steward to check on issues such as how the employer counts the one-year FMLA leave period and whether you can substitute paid leave for unpaid FMLA leave. If your contract has no language about the FMLA, you are still entitled to it if you and your employer meet the eligibility requirements noted above. Your State may also have a statute granting family/medical leave and, if so, your employer must follow that law as well as the federal FMLA. If your contract provides greater family or medical leave benefits than those granted by the FMLA, the employer must honor those benefits.
Discipline: When a leave is covered by the FMLA, that period of absence cannot be used as a basis for any disciplinary action against an employee.
Job Protection: When you return to work following an FMLA-protected leave, the employer must reinstate you to your former job or to a job of equivalent status, pay, benefits and responsibility. If you are absent on intermittent FMLA leave, the employer may move you to an alternate, equivalent job during that time, but must restore you to your former position once your intermittent leave is over. The use of FMLA leave cannot result in the loss of any employment benefit that accrued prior to the start of the leave. The FMLA makes it unlawful for any employer to interfere with or deny any right provided under the FMLA or to discharge or discriminate against any person for taking FMLA leave or for opposing any practice made unlawful by the FMLA.
