Quick answer please

njjel

We recently had a smaller company merge with us. As far as FMLA regs go does the time they spent with the other company count toward qualifying for FMLA with us, the new company? They had under 25 employees and did not have FMLA previously. Now one of the ee's wants to go out on FMLA leave for maternity. I'm thinking that she qualifies (she's been with the other company over 12 months).

KP68

Are you counting the prior time worked (with the other company) for all benefit purposes? If you are for that, then I would think you should do the same for FMLA. I know we did for a couple acquisitions we had. I would just be consistent with whatever you decide to do.

bsa

I would grant it if she met the qualifications of 1 year & 1250 hours. UNLESS, she works at a location more than 75 miles away.

Theresa Gegen TX

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 01-28-03 AT 10:14AM (CST)[/font][p]I doubt that there is a clear answer in the regs. A couple things to consider:

Was this a true merger -- or were the employee fired from the previous company, then some hired by your company (more like an aquisition)?

Which company survived the merger (probably the larger company, i'm guessing). The FMLA comes into effect when the company has the minimum number of employees (50) for 10 or 20 weeks (need to verify the number of employees and weeks in the regs for coverage) in the current of prior calander year? Does the company meet that standard?

What is the company doing about things like vacation earned at the prior company and years of services at the prior company. If the employees have credit for other purposes, I don't see why you wouldn't give it for FMLA.

Of course, the company can't be faulted by giving the employee the benefit of the FMLA.

Good Luck!

njjel

She isn't planning to return after her maternity leave however I wanted to cover all the bases as she is staying out on paid leave for almost 6 weeks with her accrued time. I didn't want her to come back at us and say we didn't place her on FMLA leave as required (IF it is indeed required for those ee's coming from the smaller company. Yes, we are the larger company and we had 66 ee's prior to the merger for 30 years so we fell under the FMLA regs.