Don’t Gut Family and Medical Leave Act

April 11, 2008

The AFL-CIO sent out this press release earlier today. Learn more about the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) on the AFSCME website. (Washington, April 11) The AFL-CIO today called on the Bush Administration to drop its proposed changes to the Family and Medical Leave Act that would make it more difficult for workers to get the time off they need to care for themselves or their loved ones in emergencies. The changes were proposed by the Bush Administration in February; an open comment period on the changes ends today. The Department of Labor will review comments and decide on final regulations. “The Department [of Labor] now proposes to make dozens of changes to the regulations, the vast majority of which impose tighter controls on the taking of FMLA leave in response to the urging of the business community. Workers gain very little under this proposal,” the AFL-CIO wrote in comments submitted to the Administration. “The Family and Medical Leave Act is working. The Department of Labor’s own research says so,” AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said, referencing a Department of Labor (DOL) study that found workers taking FMLA had little effect on business growth, productivity and profitability. “These proposed regulations are nothing more than a goodbye gift from the Bush Administration to the business interests who have been trying to gut the Family and Medical Leave Act since it was enacted 15 years ago and have found an eager partner in Labor Secretary Elaine Chao.” One of the changes of concern would limit workers’ ability to take earned paid leave while on FMLA. This would drastically reduce the effectiveness of the law, the AFL-CIO noted. “DOL’s own data shows that the availability of paid leave not only affects whether employees take FMLA leave, but is the single most important determinant of whether someone who needs leave actually takes it.” Under current law, an employer who wants information from a health care provider about an employee’s reason for taking FMLA must both get permission from the worker to seek the information and have a medical professional talk directly to the worker’s health care provider. The proposed rules would let virtually any employer representative contact a worker’s health care provider and, in some circumstances, do so without the worker’s permission. “These changes would jeopardize the confidentiality of employee medical information and provide employers with opportunities to abuse the information they receive,” the AFL-CIO wrote. “The Bush Administration is proposing to ‘fix’ a situation that does not need to be fixed by granting the wishes of its business supporters,” said Sweeney. Other proposed changes of concern would allow employers to require workers to make more frequent medical visits to get the necessary paperwork to show they need to take FMLA. For example, a worker with asthma who occasionally has to take FMLA for a day because of an attack could now be required to go to the doctor twice a year to certify the condition still exists. Such changes “impose unnecessary burdens on employees who take FMLA leave as well as on their health care providers,” the AFL-CIO wrote, noting that workers will be required to pay for these visits, outright, through co-pays or through lost time at work. The Department of Labor is also proposing that workers be required to notify employers of their intent to take FMLA before the start of the shift they will miss when unforeseen medical emergencies arise and to comply strictly with the employer’s usual call-in procedures to avoid discipline. Under current regulations workers can notify their employers as soon as practicable, so, for example, they would not be penalized because they could not call in during the actual asthma attack. “This revision will likely have the effect of permitting minor deviations from an employer’s internal notice policy to result in wholesale denial or delay of rights guaranteed under the FMLA. For example, an employee who calls a deputy supervisor instead of the chief supervisor may be penalized for not following the employer’s customary call-in policy,” the AFL-CIO wrote.