Calendar Year...FMLA
Lanie
5 Posts
Our company uses a calendar year for tracking FMLA hours. This is in the union contract so I can't change it to a rolling year. My question is this...What happens if an employee goes on FMLA in Nov. and/or Dec.? Do the remaining FMLA hours get carried over to the next year? Do they lose their remaining hours and start at 480 hours again in January? The union chairperson told me that if someone does go out say on 12/31 then as of Jan 1 the employee is to be given 480 hours for the new year in addition to unused hours from the previous year.
Has anyone run into this situation? And if so, what did you do? Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated.
Kathie
Has anyone run into this situation? And if so, what did you do? Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated.
Kathie
Comments
My understanding of the FMLA is this: An eligible employee can take up to 12 weeks of FMLA leave in a 12-month period. The employer is permitted to select from 4 methods for determining the "12-month period." And it's "use it or lose it" on the 12 weeks of leave. If the employee does not use the 12 weeks, s/he cannot "bank" it or carry it over into another 12-month period.
I don't deal with union contracts, but it may be that your contract does allow banking or carryover of leave, even tho the FMLA regulation does not.
I have a question about selecting the "12-month period." These are the 4 choices from the DOL website:
1. the calendar year
2. Any fixed 12-month "leave year"
3. the 12-month period measured forward from the date the employee's first FMLA leave begins
4. a "rolling" 12-month period measured backward from the date an employee uses any FMLA leave
Our company policy states we use option 3. At the time FMLA was implemented and our policy was written, options 1 and 2 were not selected, because an employee could conceivably take the last 12 weeks of one "12-month period" and the first 12 weeks of the next, for a total of 24 consecutive weeks off work. We would struggle with someone out for just the 12 weeks, and didn't want to have to face 24. So we chose option 3. I wasn't here at that time, so I don't know whether option 4 was considered. However, upon closer evaluation, option 3 could still let an employee off for much more than 12 weeks in a 12-month period. For instance, someone takes one week off, and starts the 12-month clock. Nine months later, that same employee could take the additional 11 weeks allowed, up to the end of the 12-month period. Then the employee could take another 12 weeks at the start of a new 12-month period. It hasn't happened to us, but could.
I think option 4 is the only one which would truly limit the employee to a maximum of 12 weeks of leave in ANY 12-month period. I am giving serious consideration to revising our policy. What method do other employers use?
And Skipper is right that your system allows an employee to take FMLA leave for 12 weeks ending Dec. 31 and begin next year's 12 weeks on Jan. 1. That's why option 3 is attractive. I've never understood option 4.
James Sokolowski
Senior Editor
M. Lee Smith Publishers