Military Families and Airline Flight Crews may see changes in their FMLA rights
In 2008 FMLA was amended by congress to include eligible employees with family members serving in the military with two types of leave
- · Military caregiver’s leave gives employees up to 26 weeks of leave in a 12-month period to take care of a “seriously injured or ill” family member currently serving in the military.
- · Qualified exigency leave allows employees (whose spouse, child, or parent is called into active duty) time off to respond to certain circumstances that arise because of a call to active duty.
President Obama took these guidelines a step further and proposed the following in his the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010 (“NDAA”). In January of this year The Department of Labor, (DOL) released a notice of proposed rule making to implement these rules as follows:
- · Extends military caregiver leave to eligible employees whose family members are recent veterans that suffered a serious injury or illness (prior to the NDAA, military caregiver leave was available only to employees of current service members);
- · Permits eligible employees to take military caregiver leave for up to five years after their family member was discharged from military service, and continue that leave during the twelve-month leave period, regardless of whether the leave extends beyond the five years since active service;
- · Expands the definition of serious illness or injury to include pre-existing conditions that become aggravated during military service; Expands the number of eligible medical providers that can draft a medical certification to justify military caregiver leave by including medical providers that are not associated with the military;
- · Expands the scope of qualified exigency leave by extending it to eligible employees whose spouse, parent, or child serves in the Regular Armed Forces (not just the National Guard or Reserves);
- · Clarifies that the qualified exigency leave is permitted only if the service member is deployed in a foreign country; and
- · Provides that eligible employees may take up to 15 days (rather than the current 5 days) to spend time with a family member on rest and recuperation leave from the military.
The DOL also proposed an implement on regulations for Airline Flight Crews in the form of the “Airline Flight Crews Technical Corrections Act” (“AFCTCA”), which the President signed into law in December 2009. Because airline crews work such different schedules than most other industries, the AFCTCA proposed rules to create special FMLA minimum hours of service eligibility requirements for airline flight crew employees and flight attendants to provide leave entitlement to such employees.
The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking is available here. Interested parties have until March 30, 2012 to submit comments on the proposed regulations. Comments may be submitted electronically at www.regulations.gov (identified by Regulatory Information Number 1235‐AA03) or by mail addressed to Mary Ziegler, Director of the Division of Regulations, Legislation, and Interpretation, Wage and Hour Division, U.S. Department of Labor, Room S‐3510, 200 Constitution Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20210.
Labor law is complex; if you have any questions regarding your employment it is recommended that you contact a California labor law attorney who can help you understand your rights and in many cases will review your situation without charge.
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