Family Medical Leave Act

Family Medical Leave Act

The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) gives employees twelve weeks off for a worker’s own serious health condition, to bond with a new child, or to care for a seriously ill child, spouse or parent. The FMLA guarantees unpaid job-protected leave, including the maintenance of seniority and benefits and continuation of group health insurance coverage. The worker must be returned to the same or equivalent job at the end of their leave.  The FMLA applies to all public sector employees and to private sector employees in businesses of 50 or more workers within a 75-mile radius.  Additionally, employees must work for their employer for at least 12 months and have worked at least 1,250 hours in the year preceding the leave.

Commentary

Chamber of Commerce Was Wrong About Family and Medical Leave Law

February 04, 2013

This week will mark twenty years since the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) was signed into law by the newly inaugurated President Bill Clinton on February 5, 1993 after years of bitter opposition by the Chamber of Commerce and other business lobbies.

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US Capitol building

Darrel Issa’s Government Handover

January 05, 2011

By Donald Cohen and Peter Dreier. Posted on Huffington Post. January 5, 2011.

Newly emboldened as chair of the House’s key investigative committee, California Cong. Darrell Issa, the conservative Republican, sent letters to more than 150 business lobby groups, asking them to identify government rules that they want eliminated.

Issa wants to hand the government over to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and a who’s who of corporate America. The new Republican Congress is their opportunity to get rid of those pesky environmental laws, consumer product safety laws and even rules to prevent another Wall St. financial train wreck.

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Cry Wolf Quotes

[The FMLA] is an unprecedented, inflexible, Government-mandated employee benefit that will strangle both individual and employer flexibility in addressing workplace needs….Government mandates…do not contribute to economic recovery and growth. Resources spent to comply with Federal mandates cannot be spent to create jobs. These mandatory costs on business are not good for the economy as a whole. Employers must be free of the same kind of rigidities that have plagued the economies of many nations in Europe.

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Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT)
09/24/1992 | Full Details | Law(s): Family Medical Leave Act

On that family leave bill, I think that it would impose a burden upon businesses, including small businesses.... You would be telling businesses, through that act, that they are required to bring temporaries in, go through a training cycle, and lose the continuity that is so important to making a business function well. It has the effect of making it more expensive for them to do business. More expensive per employee, more expensive per job. The business can only defend itself by offering fewer jobs. That's the only way they can pay for it. It is a job killer….It makes it more expensive to hire people, so businesses say we won't hire people.

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Representative Ernest Istook (R-OK). Daily Oklahoman.
10/25/1992 | Full Details | Law(s): Family Medical Leave Act

Passing this bill puts us on a slippery slope to closing exemptions and mandating paid leave.

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Representative Tom DeLay (R-TX).
11/13/1992 | Full Details | Law(s): Family Medical Leave Act

[The Democratic Party] don't get that the ability of American businesses to create jobs is directly related to the burden government places on their backs. They don't get that mandating family and medical leave is just one more burden added…. Mandating that business pick up the tab for these benefits allows them to advance their agendas without spending Federal dollars.

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Representative Tom DeLay (R-TX)
09/30/1992 | Full Details | Law(s): Family Medical Leave Act
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Evidence

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