The Provisions of the Family and Medical Leave Act

February 5, 2007

The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) was signed by President Clinton in 1993 and guarantees up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave for any of the following circumstances: the employee's own serious illness, to care for a child, to care for a spouse or parent with a serious medical condition, or to care for a newborn, newly adopted child or newly placed foster child.

Workers are currently eligible if they:

Work for a public agency (national, state, local government, public school);
Work for a private sector employer with at least 50 or more employees who work at one or more locations in a 75 mile area;
Have worked a minimum of 12 months for the same employer;
Have worked a minimum of 1250 hours in the last 12 months;
Have a covered medical condition or have a child, spouse or parent with a covered medical condition;
Are the parent of an infant or newly adopted child, or are the foster parent of a newly placed child.

Employers have the right:

To require medical certification of the severity of an employee's or her/his family member's health condition, and to require re-certification every 30 days;
To deny FMLA leave if medical certification is deemed incomplete or insufficient;
To require a second medical opinion at the employee's own expense.

By the numbers:

All public sector employers are covered by FMLA and about 60% of all private sector businesses are covered.

Approximately 80 million workers have taken job-protected leave under the FMLA. The median length of leave is 10 days and 80% of leaves are shorter than 6 weeks.

60% of U.S. workers are both covered and eligible for FMLA leave. 48% percent of covered, eligible workers are women.

51% of covered, eligible workers earn $30,000-$75,000/year; in contrast, only 24% of covered, eligible workers earn less than $30,000/year.

In 2000, 62% of employees in covered establishments did not know if the FMLA applied to them.

Of 3.5 million eligible workers who needed but did not take FMLA leave in 2000, 8 out of 10 reported that they could not afford to take unpaid leave.

88% of employers with up to 250 employees, and 80% of employers with over 250 employees, report the FMLA has had little or no impact on worker productivity.

94% of employers say the FMLA has a neutral effect on profitability.

Some employers do report adverse business impacts from FMLA leave-taking.

Those employers:

Are more likely to have 250+ employees.
Are more likely to complain about the negative impact of workers' use of unscheduled, intermittent leave, and report few problems with the most common kinds of leave-taking. (4 out 5 covered employers report that intermittent leave has a little or no impact on business performance).
Are more likely to complain about the use of unscheduled, intermittent leave by hourly-paid workers, and may not even record salaried workers' use of unscheduled, intermittent FMLA-covered leave.
Report that problematic use of unscheduled, intermittent FMLA-leave taking is not evenly distributed throughout their workforce.
Frequently complain that FMLA regulations conflict with giving awards for perfect attendance -- a program human resource experts consider the least effective in reducing absenteeism.

NOTE: Many businesses and employers, both large and small, understand the value of family and medical leave and provide it to part-time employees, for reasons beyond the mandatory ones, and even if they have fewer employees than the law requires. Also, many employers, especially larger ones, provide PAID leave for new mothers and fathers and other circumstances, thanks to a combination of union negotiations and the good sense of the business leaders.

Sources:

U.S. Department of Labor Fact Sheet #28: The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993
"Request for Information on the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993" (PDF) Federal Register, Vol. 71, No. 23. Friday, December 1, 2006, 69504.
National Partnership for Women and Families: "Highlights of the 2000 U.S. Department of Labor Report 'Balancing the Needs of Families and Employers: Family and Medical Leave Surveys'" (PDF)
National Partnership for Women & Families: "Guide to the Family and Medical Leave Act" (PDF)
Cantor, D., Waldfogel, J., Kerwin, J., et al. (2001), "Balancing the Needs of Families and Employers: Family and Medical Leave Surveys, 2000 Update", Rockville, MD: Westat.
2005 CCH Unscheduled Absence Survey: Costly Problem of Unscheduled Absenteeism Continues to Perplex Employers