Help !?!
HRinNH
1,432 Posts
My brother-in-law works for a printing company in Massachusetts. His company has 50+ employees. His wife has been down with a herniated disk and he has had to help her at home. I believe he's been taking vacation time for this. She has to have surgery soon and he'll have to take time off to help her afterwards.
He wants to take FMLA leave when the time comes but his company is trying to force him to take time off now. Their reason being they don't want him to be out for awhile, then back to work for a little while and then be out again. He doesn't need/want to be out now because his wife's pain has been stabilized but wants to take time after the surgery.
They have also told him that he will be required to sign a letter before he goes out on leave that basically says that when he comes back he will be working 12-hr shifts for the first 2 weeks and then 2nd shift thereafter. He has around 20 years with this company.
I don't know enough about FMLA to advise him of his rights but does the law differ from state to state and what can he do and not do under this law?
Learning and loving every day...
Cheryl C.
He wants to take FMLA leave when the time comes but his company is trying to force him to take time off now. Their reason being they don't want him to be out for awhile, then back to work for a little while and then be out again. He doesn't need/want to be out now because his wife's pain has been stabilized but wants to take time after the surgery.
They have also told him that he will be required to sign a letter before he goes out on leave that basically says that when he comes back he will be working 12-hr shifts for the first 2 weeks and then 2nd shift thereafter. He has around 20 years with this company.
I don't know enough about FMLA to advise him of his rights but does the law differ from state to state and what can he do and not do under this law?
Learning and loving every day...
Cheryl C.
Comments
It sounds like your Brother In-Law is eligible for FML and that this situation qualifies for intermittent FML. The time he has already taken probably qualifies for FML and the company is within it's rights to designate it as such. There are some requirements around starting the clock that call for the company to designate the leave as FML, but some precedents in the courts have loosened that up a bit.
A total of 12 weeks is available at the Federal level and he can take some now and some later.
If he has not run out of FML time when he returns to work, the company is supposed to return him to the same of equivalent position. The change you described will probably not meet that definition.
Cheryl C.
We require the use of all paid time off to run concurrent with FML.
I'd say they can, and probably should, do the former. I don't think they can do the latter.
Brad Forrister
Director of Publishing
M. Lee Smith Publishers
The only circumstance I could imagine the second half of the requirement might be legal is if the company already had in place a plan to restructure work hours and reassign him before the FML came into the picture. In that event, they could certainly continue with their plans. The company will be burdened to show that they indeed did have such a plan in place and that it had no relationship to his request for FMLA.
The HR person has recently been hired on to their company and he told me that she began like a raging bull, upsetting many folks and not giving any consideration to what was agreed on or allowed in the past. What's the old saying "a new broom sweeps clean"...
An eligible employee may not be denied the additional time off under the SNLA. The additional amount of leave allowed under SNLA is 24 hours during any 12-month period, commencing with the first date such leave is taken.
Cheryl C.