Family Medical Leave Act

America being one the most industrialized nations it is shocking to most to discover that it does not provide a more beneficial maternity leave when compared to its European counterparts. Not only is Europe leading the way for a lengthier leave of absence for new mothers, they also provide financial benefits to those families with newborns, to American society this is not considered a cultural norm, in fact it is even bizarre to some that having a child while in the work force would even be beneficial. Consequently, the difficulty in accessing a reasonable maternity leave in America creates long term effects on a child’s development.

Becoming a parent is beautiful yet stressful time in many people's lives. Emotions of joy and worry fill the mind of expecting parents as they work to provide a loving and financially stable home for their family. Both parents wish to actively support their child and their spouse during this time of transition, however, corporations are making this task difficult. Maternity leave is a benefit that most companies provide, but only for their female employees. Male employees are not given the same opportunity to share the responsibility of childcare with their wife or to develop a bond early on with their child. Providing fathers maternity leave would give them time to dedicate themselves to the growth of their child, allow the mother to heal from giving birth, and promote equality within the family unit and in the workplace.

As we move into the new millennium more and more employers are allowing, some are even encouraging, their employees to bring their newborn babies to work with them. This is probably one of the greatest changes in child care norms that this country has seen in the past 30 years. Once upon a time, when a woman had a baby she almost always quit her job to raise her child, depending on her husband to support her and her child. Then along came the idea of maternity leave. This is when a woman takes a certain amount of time off to be with newborn. Once this time period was up, the woman still had a job to go back to. This meant that women no longer had to rely on their husbands for support. Unfortunately it also

The Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) was passed with the idea of creating job protected leave when necessary, while also providing employees with the opportunity to balance work, health, and family responsibilities. FMLA is designed to avoid job loss when employees request additional time off in order to treat a critical medical condition or deal with serious family or personal matters. Due to the establishment of FMLA, workers can now maintain employment as they treat qualifying medical conditions, care for a close relative, bond with newborn, etc. In other words, the concept of FMLA was for employers to legally support their workers during life’s challenging circumstances. Although many positive outcomes are a result of this law, administering FMLA has turned into a challenging and complex task for employers. Passing this law triggered many unintended consequences that have tremendously affected the way organizations manage their leave of absence policies. Employee abuse of this privilege is a major issue employers are being faced with. The impact FMLA leave has on the entire company, including quality, performance, and productivity can be dramatic. These unplanned concerns that now exist due to FMLA provide tremendous amounts of stress for the employers to properly manage the law; FMLA has turned into a problem employers are defenseless against.

The Family Medical Leave Act was passed in 1993 and updated in 2008 and 2009. The law requires employers with 50 or more employees to allow up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave. The provision of the law would allow employees who have worked for one year and have worked at least 1,250 hours to use the unpaid leave for family or medical reasons (DeCenzo 267). It is important to note that the employee does not have to work for one year of continuous service, any combination of weeks worked that equal to 52 weeks makes and employee eligible for FMLA leave. If the employee has a break of seven years or longer, that time does not have to be counted towards the 52 weeks (United States Dept of Labor, 2017). To count the

Family and Medical Leave Act can be costly for employers. When Congress formulated the FMLA law, what was not forseen was the open door to abuse by irresponsible employees and the detriment imposed on the healthcare and public service sectors. According to a study by the Employment Policy foundation, a Washington, D.C. research group, FMLA cost employers over $21 billion dollars in 2004. This represents the most current statistical information available.

Although current federal and state level legislation guarantee some protections, these policies do not cover all new parents. Parents must have worked a minimum of 5 months while contributing to State Disability Insurance to receive 55% of their salary during 6 weeks of their parental leave, and must have worked with an employer for 1 year to quality for 12 weeks of unpaid leave (“About Paid Family Leave (PFL),” n.d.). Parental leave is not accessible to all adults in the United States because of these requirements, and therefore makes early parenting even more challenging for working adults. Nationally, the trend for mothers on maternal leave has stagnated, although the US economy has expanded (Zagorsky, 2017).

Currently, the U.S. is the only modernized country not to offer paid leave to new mothers (Hall). The one legal protection offered by the U.S government is the Family and Medical Leave Act, or the FMLA. Since it became legislation in 1993, the FMLA has guaranteed a new mother job security for twelve weeks after her child is born. It does not, however, mandate pay. The FMLA also has other downsides. Women are only secured their twelve weeks of leave if they work a minimum of 1,250 hours a year and work for a company with fifty or more employees (Hall). This means that only two out of every five women qualify for protection (Hall). If a women does not qualify, it is left to her employer’s discretion to decide how long she will get to stay with her

The workplace has changed in many ways. In the past there was stereotyping, gender discrimination, bad conditions, and less freedom and benefits for employees. Nowadays employers take precautions not to make any of those blunders. New laws and company policies helped improve the workplace. One reform that was established was the Family Medical Leave Act of 1993, also known as the FMLA. This act helped employees and employers take personal leave. The main reason why the Family Medical Leave Act was created was due to gender discrimination. Females were allowed to take leave due to the stereotype that mothers have to take care of the family. Men were discouraged and less likely to take off. The FMLA helped equalize the ability to take leave for

The Family Medical Leave Act, deals with the laws regarding “eligible” employees taking off up to twelve weeks of unpaid leave for their child's birth, adopting a child, taking care of an ill family member, or if they themselves have a serious health condition (Vikesland, 2006). In order to be considered an eligible employee, you must work for a company that employs at least fifty people, have worked there for a year and have worked a minimum of 1,250 hours in that year. “The employee also has the right to return to the same or equivalent position, pay, and benefits at the conclusion of their leave” (Vikesland, 2006).

certain amount of time temporarily when they are unable to work for medical and family

Unions are organizations that are formed with the interest of protecting employees regarding workplace conditions. First, a law that was passed due to labor union facilitation was the Family Medical and Leave Act (FMLA). This act allows eligible employees to take reasonable unpaid leave for certain family and medical reasons, as well as allowing their group health benefits to remain active during the leave. Accordingly, this effort from the unions was to promote a working environment where employees would not have to make a decision of whether to care for loved ones or themselves due to the risk of being terminated because of excessive absenteeism or just quit their jobs. At the same time, FMLA allows husbands to be a part of the birthing of

The government understood the difficulty of balancing work and childcare. As mentioned previously, FMLA permits mother to take medical leave for the period of time during which they are physically unable to work due to pregnancy, childbirth, recovery and related medical conditions. Additionally, both parents to take leave for the birth of a child, and for the placement of a child for adoption or foster. Thus, the leave allows the parents to bond with their child within one year of the child’s birth or placement. Nevertheless, according Gomby and Pei (2009), the two most important determinants of whether parents take leave are if the leave is paid and job-protected. Although FMLA provides job protection, it is unpaid, therefore many parents decide not to take it or may return to work earlier than they would have wanted to so they can support their

The lack of a paid parental leave law in the country does not necessarily mean that it is absent in the U.S. labor market. Some generous and more progressive companies do recognize the importance of the leave to employees and do offer it. According to the Employee Benefits Survey of 2015, 21% of employers nationally offer some paid maternity leave while 17% offer some paid paternity/adoption leave. However, about a fifth don’t have any kind of protected maternity, paternity, or adoptive leave. (Ray, 8; Time, n. pag.)

In conclusion, paid parental leave is a system that gives benefits to moms who give birth to accomplish particular social and monetary results. There are three proposed targets for a paid parental leave, for example, the prosperity change of families, particularly child and mother's wellbeing, connected with leave from work around the infant birth and secured money related throughout that period; motivation of women to come back to the workforce by the social welfare and tax system; and by the norms of community, having family time is the fundamental human rights for some individuals including fathers and the significance of valuing and caring for children.