Coming soon, so says Senator Tom Harkin here.
Known as the “Healthy Families Act,” this bill was introduced in the House in 2009, and again in both the House and Senate in 2011, but never got much traction.
But now, in addition to Senator Harkin, former President Bill Clinton is stumping for paid FMLA.
Image Credit: Pixabay.com
I have three kids, ages three and under. So a vacation for me is the half hour of quiet time I get in the bathroom every morning.
It’s not like the old days.
I remember Spring Break ’97 in the Bahamas. Sun, beach, water sports, and a couple of adult beverages.
It was kinda like the Mexican vacation that Carol Lineberry, a former employee of Detroit Medical Center, took back in 2011. These pictures she posted on Facebook — we didn’t have Facebook back in the day, so I’ll deny everything. EVERYTHING! — show that Ms. Lineberry is having a blast in Mexico.
Did I mention that Lineberry took this trip while taking leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act? Of course, she did. And now she’s on The Employer Handbook.
See how that works? Like a Zoolander gasoline fight, trust me, this won’t end well for Lineberry. No, it won’t.
Read more after the jump…
Before going any further, allow me to wish a Happy Belated 20th Birthday to the Family and Medical Leave Act.
What can I say? I plumb forgot. To atone, I got Fammy Med a Walkman. (Kids, that’s what we used to listen to music in 1993. It doesn’t walk and it’s not a man. But it did play my mix tapes — sigh).
Next year, to celebrate the big 2-1, drinks are on me. Sizzurpbombs! Remy Martin Cognac Louis XIII.
Three easy ways to tackle FMLA issues, without having to call someone like me. I’ll explain after the jump…
*Do I need a disclaimer? Do I?
What a year for The Employer Handbook in 2012! I’m most pleased that, in our second year of existence, readership more than doubled. Although, sadly, the one 2011 reader I had from Papua New Guinea never returned in 2012. I hope she is ok. Yeah, she’s ok.
So, what did my readers enjoy most in 2012? Well, apparently, y’all like Polka music. Why else would this be the most-clicked item on The Employer Handbook? What a strange cultured bunch!
Today we have a guest blogger at The Employer Handbook. It’s one of my fave employment lawyers from Twitter, Chuck Lawson.
Chuck is a member of the Labor and Employment group at Grant Konvalinka & Harrison, P.C., where he specializes in all phases of the employer-employee relationship, including wage and hour, FMLA, ADA, unemployment compensation, and discrimination/harassment law.
After the jump, Chuck is going to school you on some FMLA pitfalls that can trip up even the best employers — and how to avoid them (the pitfalls, that is).
(Want to guest blog at The Employer Handbook? Holla at ya boy).
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That’s right folks. It’s time for another edition of “Fact or Fiction” a/k/a “Quick Answers to Quick Questions” a/k/a QATQQ f/k/a “I don’t feel like writing a long blog post.”
The Family and Medical Leave Act permits employees to take leave on an intermittent basis or to work a reduced schedule under certain circumstances, such as caring for a parent with a serious health condition. Intermittent leave can be days, hours, or even minutes off of work. Indeed, when an employee takes FMLA leave on an intermittent or reduced leave schedule basis, the employer must account for the leave using an increment no greater than the shortest period of time that the employer uses to account for use of other forms of leave provided that it is not greater than one hour and provided further that an employee’s FMLA leave entitlement may not be reduced by more than the amount of leave actually taken.
When employees use minutes of intermittent FMLA, it’s generally in the form of early dismissals or late arrivals to work. But what about FMLA leave during breaks and lunches, when the employee never actually leaves the office? Can that time be used for intermittent FMLA leave?
Better settle the case, right?
Not if you’re Flannery Oaks Guest House. Instead, you move for summary judgment and try to get your former employee’s FMLA retaliation claim dismissed.
Was Andy Reid or Norv Turner calling that play?
How do you think it worked out for ole Flannery Oaks? (Hint: it failed miserably). Find out for sure after the jump…
Welcome everyone to the Employment Law Blog Carnival: Hollywood Casting Call Edition.
[Editor’s Note: The original theme for this post was the “Employment Law Blog Carnival: Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll Edition.” I had this bright idea to begin by cutting and pasting the lyrics to Guns N’ Roses’ “My Michelle,” and, let’s just say I bailed after the first line.]
So that leaves us with Plan B, where, after the jump, I have aggregated some of the best, recent posts from around the employment-law blogosphere and fit them together into a single theme: an open casting call.
Because just the other day, this theme came to me after waking from a Codeine/Claritin-D/Mucinex DM-induced slumber, in which I dreamt about casting a recent post of mine — the one where an employee lost out on an FMLA retaliation claim when her employer fired her after finding Facebook photos of her drinking at a local festival — while on FMLA. My movie will star Kim Kardashian, in her silver screen debut, as the employee. And Alan Thicke, who played Dr. Jason Seaver on “Growing Pains,” could play the company decision-maker. We’ll call it “FML Aye Yai Yai!“
[Editor’s Note: I’m throwing Thicke a bone here. Don’t you think? According to IMDB.com, he just finished production on “Fugget About It“, in which ex New York mobster Jimmy Falcone joins the Witness Protection Program and is relocated, with his family, to Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. Fugget about it, indeed.]
So that’s the idea. More great posts and imaginative casting decisions, after the jump…
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About a year-and-a-half into Sara Jaszczyszyn’s employment with Advantage Health Physician Network (“Advantage”), she began taking intermittent FMLA leave for back pain that which she stated left her “completely incapacitated.”
About five weeks into her leave, several of her coworkers saw pictures of her on Facebook consuming adult beverages at a local Polish beer festival. (Although she doesn’t appear to be “completely incapacitated,” she does appear to be having a good ol time, doesn’t she?)
Yadda, yadda, yadda, Advantage fires Ms. Jaszczyszyn and she claims FMLA retaliation.
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