FMLA
Wife's employer (county government) is telling her she cannot take 6 weeks off for the birth of our child. She took 6 weeks off last October for her hysterectomy and 6 weeks off this year for her hernia. 4 of those weeks were taken as her vacation or comp. time. Funny how they can count a short term disability and vacation time under Family Medical Leave Act.
0
-
how is she having a baby after a hysterectomy?
anyway congrats0 -
quote:Originally posted by 1911a1fan
how is she having a baby after a hysterectomy?
anyway congrats
Surrogate pregnancy. Our baby but a friend carrying it. Our name on the birth certificate. She wanted 6 weeks off after the baby was born. as opposed to the 3-4 months that some woman take off.
I didn't think FMLA was intended to be applied for your own surgeries, but for the dare of others in your family.0 -
I'm pushing her to quit, or dare them to fire her, for taking time off for the birth of a child. Their short handed and behind the curve on training and growth. I don't thin they can afford to push this one.
What employer isn't going to allow a mother time off for the birth of a child?0 -
i think they would see it differently if she was carrying the baby, i think the fact that shes not is the whole reason for the denial. 0 -
quote:Originally posted by SuburbanNoize
i think they would see it differently if she was carrying the baby, i think the fact that shes not is the whole reason for the denial.
yep, in your case it is more of an emotional than a physical reason, and no one has sympathy any more
hope all goes well for all of you0 -
Would you turn a new born baby over to day care? 6 weeks off for the mother for the care of a newborn fresh from the hospital doesn't seem unusual to me.
I still think the county is misapplying FMLA.0 -
You take six weeks off Mr Mom!!!! problem solved!!! 0 -
You get 12 weeks of FMLA per calendar year, period. That includes having to take time off for a FMLA reason, even when you use accumulated leave time. I don't like it either, but that is the way it is applied.
From an employers perspective, how much time should you be allowed to be away from the job that needs done and that you are being paid to perform?0 -
quote:Originally posted by Captplaid
I'm pushing her to quit, or dare them to fire her, for taking time off for the birth of a child. Their short handed and behind the curve on training and growth. I don't thin they can afford to push this one.
What employer isn't going to allow a mother time off for the birth of a child?
That is the best thing for the baby!0 -
quote:Originally posted by lt496
You get 12 weeks of FMLA per calendar year, period. That includes having to take time off for a FMLA reason, even when you use accumulated leave time. I don't like it either, but that is the way it is applied.
From an employers perspective, how much time should you be allowed to be away from the job that needs done and that you are being paid to perform?
Heck, were I work, in extreme cases, the company allows truely ill people, to come back for 2 weeks to re-up their insurance after being off sick for 6 months. Right now, there is a guy that had his colon perforated during a surgery, he's been off. He is wearing a bag to collect his poop. He was just back for two weeks. ANother guy,that's now dead, did the same thing. He had cancer. There are illnesses that go on for longer than 12 weeks.
Now having said that, I know a woman whose husband is nuts. I've talked to him a couple of times. He is legitimately loony. She works shift work. She takes day shift off every three weeks to stay with him. For whatever reason, he cannot be alone during the day. Apparently she has other arrangements for the weeks she works afternoons and midnights. So her 12 weeks of FMLA covers most of the year when she is on day shift. Her 5 weeks of vacation covers almost all the rest. She has about two or three weeks where she has to work days and find someone to stay with her loony husband.
Yes, she has to make a living on 2/3 of a salary. Yes, it sucks for her employer to have to find someone else to do her job for 1/3 of the year, but this is really the purpose of FMLA, to be able to care for those in your family and not fear of losing your job.
There is also a potential dark side. The is huge potential for an employee to abuse FMLA. Some can see it as 12 weeks of unpaid vacation. All you need is a quack to sign off on it.0 -
Call your state's labor relation board. 0 -
As an employer I get to decide just when the yearly (12 month) FMLA clock starts ticking and I'd be setting the start date at October, when your better half took her first 6 weeks off from work. Add the six weeks she took off this year and she is out of FMLA leave time until October 2007 rolls around. Using paid time off (PTO as we call it at my firm) or accured sick leave has no impact on FMLA at all. Keep in mind that as an empolyer I have no obligation to give you 6 weeks off to have a medical procedure unless I chose to do so, even if you have hundreds of hours of PTO on the books, and I am free to fill your position while you are gone...PERMANENTLY. Upon your return you would have no right to your old job. Under FMLA I cannot do this so it is in the employees best interest to access FMLA for such long term medical procedures and then use PTO or sick leave to cover the shortfall in income. This all sounds pretty nasty, which is why I was told by a less than friendly GB member (of which there are so many) that I am the reason that unions are still needed. 0 -
quote:Originally posted by kristov
As an employer I get to decide just when the yearly (12 month) FMLA clock starts ticking and I'd be setting the start date at October, when your better half took her first 6 weeks off from work. Add the six weeks she took off this year and she is out of FMLA leave time until October 2007 rolls around. Using paid time off (PTO as we call it at my firm) or accured sick leave has no impact on FMLA at all. Keep in mind that as an empolyer I have no obligation to give you 6 weeks off to have a medical procedure unless I chose to do so, even if you have hundreds of hours of PTO on the books, and I am free to fill your position while you are gone...PERMANENTLY. Upon your return you would have no right to your old job. Under FMLA I cannot do this so it is in the employees best interest to access FMLA for such long term medical procedures and then use PTO or sick leave to cover the shortfall in income. This all sounds pretty nasty, which is why I was told by a less than friendly GB member (of which there are so many) that I am the reason that unions are still needed.
I didn't think your shop would be big enough to qualify for FMLA. I thought there was a qualification like "X" number of employees in a 3o mile radius for an employer to qualify for FMLA.0 -
FMLA applies to private businesses which employ 50 or more people for 20 or more weeks per year. We have 40 full time employees, the three partners, and we use about 10 part time employees during the course of each year (18 to 24 weeks of employment) in order to cut costs. 0 -
Read up more on FMLA. Looks like if the employer has it worded properly, they can actually require the person to use personal time (vacation, comp, paid sick time, ect) under FMLA before counting FMLA time.
To make a correction, she used 6 weeks for one surgery and 5 weeks for the other. 4 of those eleven weeks was her vacation time. So she has 1 week left. Looking back, she should have technically had the hysterectomy a few weeks earlier, so the pregnancy would have fallen in the 13th month.
The employer is behind in hiring and training 2 people. One person quit and the county authorized them to hire another. A third is about to sign retirement papers. If they have to "let" Mrs. Plaid go because we have a baby, they will be 4 people in the hole. While they have explained to her that they cannot authorize more than one week, what are they going to do? They cannot really afford to lose another good person. New director is doing a great job creating a labor shortage.
Part of me encourages her to take the time off and dare them to fire her for taking 6 weeks off for a new born baby. Then there could be an unemployment hearing and she could possibly get unemployement. Reason for termination would be absenteeism due to illness/having a baby. She could probably win an unemployment hearing. The rest of her attendance record is spotless.
Truth is though, if it were me, I wouldn't dare the employer to fire me. I would do the right thing. I would just quit, which is probably what she will do. It's so much easier to advise someone else to play hardball with an employer.0 -
Probably wouldn't apply in her case, since she isn't carrying the baby and won't be giving birth to it, but what about Long Term Disability insurance? I carry an LTD policy on me through my church employer. I do have to be off a month before it kicks in though. As I said, not sure pregnancy would apply though. The FMLA was one of those "feel good" things the Congress passed to show us sheeple how much they "care" about us. It really has no teeth at all. 0 -
Reading up on FMLA I learned it covers the birth of a child, plus the adoption, and also the placement of a foster child. 0 -
Truth is, I'm pissing because I hate to lose. I guess it's human nature. I actually do want her to quit. It's rather offensive to think they won't give her unpaid time off for a baby.
You want to go out on your terms not theirs. She's been a good employee and the new director is an inaccessible jerk. He's getting a pention from a Fire Department job and now have this one. He doesn't care about it, and the employees are getting tire of his crap by email decree. He created an assistant director out of a dispatcher. That person also gets to do his dirty work.
Classic Pissing contest.0
Please sign in to leave a comment.
Comments
18 comments