Paid FMLA leave

cmergl

We have an employee who has a family medical emergency and has been out of the office since 8/15/02. I intend to inform him very soon of his FMLA rights and that this time will be considered FMLA leave. He's been waiting for test results and I wanted to wait until he & his family have had some time to process/accept the medical situation before I speak with him.

My concern with this situation is that I think the firm intends to keep him on full pay for some portion of the time he is on leave. It's not that I do not think he should get paid, but I am concerned of the precedent this will set and that a former employee may get wind of this and cause problems. This former employee was on FMLA leave recently for birth of a child. She took the full 12 weeks and received $500/week for 5 weeks as disability pay. She did not return to work. During discussions regarding her leave she made a fuss about only receiving $500/week. I'm concerned she'll get wind of this new situation with FMLA and want to get paid. I should mention that she was only with the company for just over a year when she went on leave and this current employee has been with us for 5 years.

The question I have is can we say we will pay "x" number of weeks of your FMLA leave in the case of an unplanned or emergency situation (i.e. not birth of a child)? Or can we say we will pay "x" weeks if you've been here for more than "x" years? This whole thing doesn't seem quite kosher to me. Any input would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Margaret Morford

I wouldn't make the distinction that you can get paid for emergency FMLA but not pregnancy FMLA. See the lawsuit coming? However, I think that you can say that after five years of service, the company will pay for X weeks of FMLA. Just make sure the powers-that-be understand that everyone with over five years of service will be entitled to receive this.

Margaret Morford
theHRedge
615-371-8200
[email]mmorford@mleesmith.com[/email]
[url]http://www.thehredge.net[/url]

cmergl

Thank you for the response. And yes - I did see the lawsuit coming. It's so difficult to make the "powers that be" understand the situation they could be in if they aren't careful.

I have discussed this further with my supervisor, and he does not like the idea of setting the policy up in such a way that all employees with a certain tenure would get "x" weeks of paid FMLA leave. The reason for this is that if someone takes leave for their own illness or pregancy, and they have our short term disability insurance, they can get 60% of their weekly income up to $500 per week as disability income. The person who takes FMLA leave to care for a sick spouse, child, or parent will not receive any income unless they have some paid personal time to use.

So my new question is can we set this policy up so that employees who have been employed here for "x" years that take FMLA leave to care for an immediate family member who is ill can have "x" weeks of paid FMLA leave? I need to find the best way to handle this so that we can provide some pay for this individual who is currently on FMLA leave and stay out of legal trouble in the future.

LFernandes

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 09-05-02 AT 02:08PM (CST)[/font][p]Just a reminder that if someone takes an emergency FMLA leave you still only have two days to designate the leave. What I normally do is a preliminary designation until I get further information. That way the employee is notified of their rights right away and it gives me the needed time to make a final designation.

Ruskanen

Being single, with no children, and a disabled parent, I would find this policy unfair. Those people are choosing to have children and are getting paid weeks off for it. I didn't choose to have my mother be disabled, but yet when I am absent to care for her, I don't get as many benefits. Has anyone ever brought that up?

Rockie

I agree with you Rusk. I believe somewhere in the FMLA regs it states that time can either be paid or unpaid, but it has to be desinated by the company as one way or the other and the employee has to be notified of this in their FMLA letter. I don't believe a company can pick and choose based on whether it is pregnancy related or not as to if it will be paid or not. I believe this is very discriminatory to the workforce who have family obligations other than pregnancy. Pregnancy entitles one to equal treatment, not "special" treatment.

We require employees to use all their PTO bank and then the rest of the leave is unpaid FMLA. By doing this employees cannot take off 12 weeks of unpaid leave while banking up their PTO to use as vacation time when they come back to work.

I have had new mothers on FMLA leave who tell me they stay home 12 weeks, take 2 naps a day with their new baby, have it in day care part of the time they are off and then tell me it's not "fair" they have to use their PTO for "maternity leave".

I still remember the days when new mothers were required to come back to work after their 6 weeks checkup with their physician and day care providers took in 6 week olds.

Ruskanen

Thanks for agreeing. And I thought I was just being whiney.