Family and Medical Leave Act – What employees need to know
3 min read
Last Updated on July 20, 2022 by Journal Fact
If you make a list of the most common life stressors, personal health issues will rank at the top. You never know when you’re going to fall sick or a member of your family will have health issues. Dealing with these medical problems will lead to complexities in the life of employees who are answerable to their employers.
Though employers offer sick leaves to their employees that are to be used in case of sicknesses, what should they do if a near one in the family suddenly falls ill? The FMLA or the Family and Medical Leave Act was brought into effect keeping in mind this issue. This was a federal law that was introduced in the year 1993 to allow workers to strike a balance between their family responsibilities and work responsibilities.
Here are a few things that you should know about the FMLA:
- Thanks to the FMLA that the employees can now enjoy 12 weeks of leave during a 1 year period. However, this is unpaid leave.
- You are allowed to use paid leave when you’re already on FMLA leave.
- Only under some specific circumstances can you take the FMLA leave
- All employees or employers are not covered under the FMLA leave
- You have to offer solid proof of serious medical illness.
- Your employer is bound to offer a job after you leave but that may be different from the previous job that you were doing.
You can use paid leave within the FMLA leave period
While you’re on FMLA leave, you can also use paid leave. Although FMLA leaves are unpaid, this is at times possible under certain situations. You might even use the paid leaves that you’ve accumulated during the unpaid FMLA leave.
The types of paid leaves that are allowed are sick days, vacation days, and other forms of paid leave. The employers are not legally bound to provide you with this type of paid leaves. There might be other employers that ask you to utilize your paid leaves before you go on to take your FMLA leave.
Conditions under which you can take FMLA leaves
While you may think that it’s okay to time a few days off for any type of health crisis in your family, this leave won’t be approved for all reasons. Here are the 3 designated situations under which you can take FMLA leaves:
- When you have to handle a serious health condition of a family member or yourself
- For giving birth to a child to bond with the newborn or placement of a child for adoption or foster care
- For other specific reasons like taking care of a retired military service member
If you want to know more about medical leaves offered by employers, you can get in touch with a lawyer from Hayber, McKenna, & Dinsmore. Make sure the lawyer you appoint is an expert in dealing with employment law and has a satisfactory number of successful cases.