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
US Capitol building

Darrel Issa’s Government Handover

January 05, 2011

Cry Wolf Quotes

It's just a bad piece of legislation…This continuous tendency to try to mandate benefit policy creates a bad business environment for Tennessee and the U.S. as a whole…[benefits] should be left up to the employers and employees to determine.

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Steve Norris, spokesman for the Tennessee Business Roundtable, Memphis Business Journal.
05/14/1990 | 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

[I am] incredulous to hear from my staff that you are contemplating a compromise on parental leave legislation. [Mandated leave benefits are] the greatest threats to small business in America.

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John Sloane Jr., president of the National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB).
12/01/1987 | Full Details | Law(s): Family Medical Leave Act

This disturbing trend is nothing short of Europeanization -- a polite term for socialism.

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Representative Cass Ballenger (R-NC). States News Service.
11/18/1987 | Full Details | Law(s): Family Medical Leave Act

Evidence