Family and Medical Leave Act

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FAMILY AND MEDICAL LEAVE ACT

President Bill Clinton's (1993–) first legislative action after taking office was the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), which went into effect August 5, 1993. According to the Commission on Family and Medical Leave, the act was developed to "support families in their efforts to strike a workable balance between the competing demands of the workplace and the home." This action was significant because previously, the United States was the only industrialized country that did not guarantee job protection when employees needed work leave that exceeded company vacation or sick-leave allowances.

The FMLA, which applies to all school, public agency and private sector employers with 50 or more employees, allows up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave in a 12-month period for certain family and medical reasons. The law also requires employers to maintain the employees' health benefits during leave and to restore the employee's job after the leave. Under FMLA guidelines the 12-week leave is allowed for the birth of a child; adoption or foster care of a child; care for a spouse, child or parent with a serious health condition; or for employees who cannot work due to a serious health condition.

After legislation was passed in 1993 conflicting reports emerged about the effectiveness of FMLA. In 1996 a government-sponsored Report to Congress, called "A Workable Balance," concluded that "the FMLA has not been the burden to business that some feared. For most employers compliance is easy, the costs are non-existent or small, and the effects are minimal." As a result of this report, an amendment was introduced in 1997 to expand the FMLA. The amendment extended coverage to 13 million more employees by requiring employers with 25 or more employees to provide FMLA benefits in addition to those with 50 or more employees already covered by existing legislation. In 1997, a second independent survey contradicted the Report to Congress with evidence that the FMLA was fraught with compliance and implementation problems. This study resulted in action by a bipartisan group in 1998 to introduce the Family and Medical Leave Clarification Act, an amendment that would make the FMLA easier for employers to understand and use.

What could account for the difference in opinion between the two surveys? According to some experts it may have been a matter of timing. The Report to Congress survey was conducted between January 1994 and June 1995, before the Department of Labor implemented final regulations. These regulations included several changes, such as the definition of a serious health condition, which made the mandate more difficult to manage. Indeed, when Human Resources professionals were asked in the 1997 independent survey about changes that would make the FMLA more userfriendly, respondents cited tightening the definition of a serious health condition. Some stated that FMLA actually cost companies money because it was costly and time-consuming to contest poorly documented medical claims. Also, some employers noted an increase in absence rates as a result of FMLA.

While the controversy continued regarding the FMLA, both sides agreed that the legislation was well-intentioned. Though most members of the Labor Policy Association (LPA), a Washington, DC-based employer association that focused on employment policy issues, considered the law an inconvenience rather than a threat to business, they would have liked the problems with FMLA corrected before it was expanded.

See also: Women in the Workplace