"Riley Factor"

This article was featured in the July 2007 issue of Business Matters, our monthly print newsletter.

FMLA Report Now Available

At the end of June, The U.S. Department of Labor released Family and Medical Leave Act Regulations:  A Report on the Department of Labor’s Request For Information.  The report is a comprehensive review of the thousands of public comments received in response to the Department of Labor’s Request For Information (RFI) about the Family Medical Leave Act regulations and their impact in the workplace.

Since its enactment in 1993, the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) has allowed millions of American workers and their families to take job protected leave upon the birth or adoption of a child, to deal with their own serious illness, and when needed, to care for family members.

After nearly fourteen years administering the law, the Employment Standards Administration’s Wage and Hour Division issued the RFI in December 2006 to get public input on experiences with the law and the overall effectiveness of the regulations.

More than 15,000 comments were received from employers, workers, family members, and other interested parties.  The input included personal accounts, legal reviews, industry and academic studies, surveys and plenty of recommendations for regulatory and statutory changes to address specific areas of concern.

In a letter accompanying the executive summary of the full report, Assistant Secretary of Labor Victoria Lipnic stated there is broad consensus FMLA is good for workers and their families, is in
the public interest and is a good workplace policy.

However, the report also clearly illustrated there are legitimate business concerns with FMLA.

The report highlighted a prevalence of unscheduled intermittent leaves being taken in certain workplaces. As the record indicated, this is the single most serious area of friction between employers and workers. Another major area of concern on the part of workers, employers and health care providers, is the medical certification process.

Now that the report has been issued it will be up to the business community to advocate for decisive regulatory changes to revise the FMLA implementing regulations, particularly with respect to notice requirements, defining serious health conditions and the use of intermittent leave.

The report’s executive summary is available on the Internet at: http://www.dol.gov/esa/whd/FMLA2007Report/ExecutiveSummary.pdf. The full report is available at: http://www.dol.gov/esa/whd/fmla2007report.htm. Information is also available by calling the Department of Labor’s toll-free help line at (866) 4US-WAGE (487-9243).