dlongawa

dlongawa · March 2011

I know that FMLA does not require pay if the employee has no PTO to his credit. However, isn't it required to allow an employee to use paid sick time IF they have sick pay to their credit, to care for a sick mother EVEN if that sick mother is not the employee's dependent? Ex: Mom lives on her own, out of state & becomes ill. Dr says she must have someone to look after her for a week. Employee/son agrees to travel out of state to care for her for 1 week and he has 900 sick hours to his credit. Can an employer say okay to take FMLA but you will do so without pay because you may not use your sick pay except for your self or dependents living in your household. I think the employer has to allow the employee to use his paid sick time to care for a sick parent, regardless whether that parent is living in their household. Help.

tmperry · March 2011

Hmmm, I'm interested in seeing the responses to this from others. I've always worked for companies and under the policy that we require you use any annual/sick/pto time you have available while on FMLA.

ACU Frank · March 2011

We would NOT allow the employee to use sick time in this situation. We only allow sick time to be used if the employee is sick. We would require the employee to use all accrued vacation during the leave.

sonny · March 2011

In the case of FMLA our policy allows the use of sick and vacation. . actually we would not allow unpaid leave if they had time on the books.

ACU Frank · March 2011

To clarify, Sonny... You allow use of sick time to care for family members?

Still Need Coffee · March 2011

dlongawa - in the first sentence of your post you mention PTO, then later mention sick pay....which does your organization use? We use PTO, which in our case substitutes for vacation and sick leave. We require PTO be used for all FMLA time.

halll · March 2011

We have separate vacation and sick banks. We allow employees to use sick leave to care for qualifying family members (parents, step-parents, siblings, and children, among others). We would definitely allow an employee to use sick leave to care for mom under FMLA.

sonny · March 2011

Frank. . Yes

FunHRBanker · March 2011

It depends on your state laws. In WI, employees can use ANY accrued time during state leave, regardless of if the leave would actually qualify as sick time under our policy. We cannot force the use of paid time until state leave is exhausted. At that point, we do force the use of vacation and personal time, but have not forced the use of sick time.

For your next post, may I suggest entering a title describing your question rather than your name? Just a thought!

Dutch2 · March 2011

We also allso allow sick time for family use: "Sick Leave salary continuance may be used for sickness in your immediate household such as spouse, children, and step-children. It may also include parents and parental in-laws regardless of their residence."

dlongawa · March 2011

I thought paid sick had to be allowed to care for a parent if the sick time was accrued. The private MN company says ee can't use his accrued sick time for parent because she is not ee's dependent.

NaeNae55 · March 2011

Some state laws might require it, but it is not a federal requirement. For instance, here in Kansas we do not hav eto allow sick leave for even someone in the immediate family, such as spouse or child. We have to allow FMLA of course, but if we choose to we can withhold sick pay if it is for a relative and not the employee.

SpartanFan · March 2011

I guess my question to all of you is why wouldn't you require that all, or at least a portion of available vacation/sick/PTO time to be burned during FMLA? To allow allow someone to utilize FMLA without burning all or a significant portion of available paid time off only increases the total time away from the job, as they will return from leave and then utilize even more paid time away from work - it essentially guarantees increased absenteeism

ACU Frank · March 2011

Most of us would require that IF the leave was for the employee's health condition. But most employers who do not allow employees to use sick time for family members would NOT allow an employee to burn sick time while on FML for a family member. In other words, the FML doesn't affect the availability of non-mandatory benefits.

joannie · March 2011

Our policy requires employees to use all available paid time off in conjunction with FMLA.

Dutch2 · March 2011

Same here. We require anyone on FMLA to use any vacation and/or sick time they have available until short term disibility kicks in on day 31.

bethk · March 2011

We also require all vacation and sick available to be used when an employee is on FMLA.

Still Need Coffee · March 2011

Same here. PTO runs concurrently with FMLA and non-FMLA personal leave.

dlongawa

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