LOA and Moonlighting

mrsbowden · November 2003

I guess it had never crossed my mind but I read an article today about ee's using APPROVED Leave, i.e. medical, personal, fml, wok.comp etc to moonlight. We are interested in writing a policy prohibiting moonlighting while out on leave. Does anyone have some they would like to share...or comments? x:)

mrsbowden · November 2003

Just to clarify..I read some of the past posting on this topic and everyone seems to have different idea of how the law works in these case. Does anyone have a source of the law to refer to.

From what I read...We can not prohibit ee's from moonlighting..as long as they have a legitimate excuse for FMLA and its approved they can use their leave how they wish, BUT we as er's can have a unifor company policy prohibiting moonlight during ANY KIND OF LEAVE and you can ban ee's from working during FMLA????????? But you must ban moonlighting from ALL types of leave not just FMLA leave.

Kathie0554 · November 2003

You're right. You cn only ban it IF you ban moonlighting for everyone in your company who are out on ANY kind of leave. You can't just ban if for those who are using FMLA

Don D · November 2003

What's the point? What are you trying to accomplish? You're only creating heartburn for yourself.

mrsbowden · November 2003

Don D - My supervisor feels that if you are out on leave it should be for one of the stated purposes and not to work at another job, hence taking away from our company time and resources. Therefore, by banning Moonlighting for all types of leave may discourage ee's from taking advantage of FMLA. This is how it was stated to me. x:)? What are your thoughts?

Don D · November 2003

I just think the supervisor is dreaming up something uncontrollable for you to monitor. It is a violation of federal law to try to prohibit someone on FMLA from doing other things, including working elsewhere, unless you do have some sort of policy prohibiting that across the board in every other case, for a clear business reason. And if you do, it must be followed to the letter in other situations, not just monitored for FMLA. I think if the truth were known, you probably do have some people who take a week or two of vacation and are working another job. If you find out about that, would you terminate them? And, if you don't find out, are you investigating to see if they are.....like your supervisor probably intends for you to investigate those on FMLA? If you formulate such a policy, it must be consistent thoughout the spectrum of all absences or you may be guilty of FMLA discrimination. I'm the world's biggest critic of FMLA, but, I do know how slippery this one is.

mrsbowden · November 2003

Don D, thanks for the insight..I understand your point of view and you have me convinced that it would probably bring more trouble monitoring etc. than it is really hurting the companys productivity etc. We will see what those above me think next?????....Thanks again x:)

AJ SPHR · November 2003

We are re-vamping our employee handbook and one of the things we added to all of our leave policies is that working other jobs while on leave is not permitted. In all the legal articles I've read, you can disallow someone from doing so on FMLA as long as you disallow employees on other types of leave. To us it made sense to do (we're a small company so not difficult to track) because why would we want to either pay for time off or provide time off for someone who needs it for medical or personal care issues, which then enables them to work at another job? My question is why wouldn't you want to do this?x:-/

mrsbowden · November 2003

I think here it has become a trusting issue. I work for Private educational institutions and I just don't think the higher ups here would go for it.

LOA and Moonlighting

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