Need Help Quick!

LindaS

We have an employee who has been approved for intermittent leave for the birth of a child (in WI we have to approve it for the 1st 16 weeks). This morning he has requested leave for tomorrow, Friday, Monday-Wednesday of next week. He is getting married this weekend and he and his wife are planning on taking a little "road trip" next week.

Can I deny this or do I not have a choice about allowing this? This is NOT what the law was intended for but not sure if I'm okay to deny.

I told the supervisor I would get back to him shortly.

Thanks.

Whatever

I'm assuming the child has been born. However, I know of no state law that covers honeymoons. At our company, a request such as this would be in writing which would make it easy to reject.

System

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 06-04-03 AT 12:51PM (CST)[/font][p]I,too, assume the child has been born.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but the father has a right to 12 weeks leave under FMLA (intermittent only if employer agrees). I don't think there's anything in the law that restricts how he uses that time.

Be it mom or dad, I think the intent was to give the parent a "bonding" time, and that they can have 12 weeks no matter what they do during that time.

I don't know how you'd deny this. He really didn't have to tell you what he was doing - just request time due to birth of a child- again, as best I understand.

Whatever

The wording of the initial thread let me to conclude that he was requesting time off for a honeymoon without the baby. No baby, no bonding, no FMLA.

LindaS

That was my initial thought as well but it appears the kids are going along.

LindaS

Sher - In response to your comments, as well as to update on the situation, this is the route I took...

Although the federal regs. allow for intermittent leave for this purpose ONLY if the employer agrees, WI regs. state an employee has 6 weeks in the first 16 to use for this purpose and they CAN use it intermittently, regardless of what the employer says. Being a WI employer, we do NOT go above what the regs. tell us we HAVE to.

That being said, the law also allows for an employer to request advance notice whenever the lease is forseeable (something I remembered while talking with an HR colleague), which we felt this was. Failure to provide that notice allows us to deny the leave request, even though he qualifies for FMLA. This is what we did.

Had a short meeting with the ee, informed him of this aspect of the law, he relented that he knew about this well in advance but did not feel the lack of notice would be a problem. I told him I would talk to the supervisor to see what we could do...

Long story short, he will be coming in to work tommorow but we have granted the remaining 4 days to him. He was also informed that any future time off of more than one day for this reason must be preceeded by at least a three day notice. He agreed and was VERY thankful that he didn't have to go home and tell a very nervous fiancee he would not get the time off.

Thanks for your help.

njjel

Question, whatever happened to the reg that states the employer must give the employee the most favorable reg when state and fed regs conflict? Or am I dreaming?

System

I can't name regs..but my training, etc, was that the employer had to comply with the most stringent law. If state law required more time off than fed.law, the state law would govern.

LindaS

Sher - Njjel is correct in his assessment that the employer must go with whatever law provides more favorable regs. for the employee.