Legal —12

Family And Medical Leave Act
The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA) remains a valuable source of rights for IAM members and a subject of frequent inquiries to the Legal Department. The Legal Department has conducted numerous FMLA training sessions for IAM representatives and members both at the William W. Winpisinger Center and at Local and District Lodges throughout the United States. In addition, the Legal Department continues to work extensively with District and Local Lodges to protect and maximize our members’ contractual and FMLA leave rights at the negotiating table, in grievances and arbitrations, and, if necessary, through regulatory or other enforcement proceedings.While IAM members and other working men and women overwhelmingly express support for maintaining and strengthening the FMLA and similar state statutes, the Bush Administration and the Supreme Court have, unfortunately, gone in the other direction.

In Ragsdale v.Wolverine Worldwide, the first FMLA case to reach it, the Supreme Court struck a major blow to an important pro-employee notice provision in the FMLA implementing regulations. The FMLA regulations written by the pro-worker Clinton Administration specified that an employer could not run FMLA leave concurrently with another period of leave unless the employer had so notified the employee and given the employee information about his or her rights under the FMLA. Despite ample evidence that Congress did not intend for the FMLA to supercede any greater benefits provided in a collective bargaining agreement or an employer’s existing policy, the Supreme Court struck down the regulation, ruling that the employer did not have to extend an additional 12 weeks of FMLA leave to an employee after she had exhausted her regular contractual leave even though the employer had never notified the employee that her leave was being counted toward her 12-week FMLA entitlement or otherwise given her any information about her FMLA leave rights. As a result of Ragsdale, it is more important than ever that unions negotiate the terms of the FMLA’s interaction with contractual benefits.

From the beginning, the Bush Administration has targeted the pro-worker Clinton Administration’s FMLA regulations. Shortly before leaving office, President Clinton expanded FMLA rights by implementing a regulation which allowed individual states to amend their unemployment insurance statutes to permit parents to collect unemployment while on FMLA leave for the birth, adoption or placement for foster care of a new child. The Bush Administration took immediate aim at this “baby UI” regulation and has since rescinded it. In the wake of the Supreme Court’s Ragsdale decision, the Bush Administration has also announced its intention to reopen the FMLA regulations, ostensibly to bring the regulation in line with the Ragsdale decision. However, also on the Administration’s agenda is a narrowing of the FMLA’s definition of “serious health condition” and further restrictions on employees’ rights to take FMLA leave intermittently.We continue to expect the Bush Administration to move forward with this antiworker agenda for the FMLA.

Despite these setbacks, there have been a few positive developments in the area of leave rights. Some public sector employees benefited from the Supreme Court’s second FMLA decision. In Nevada Dep’t of Human Resources v. Hibbs, the Supreme Court ruled that states may be sued for violating the FMLA rights of their state employees. An exciting step forward for leave rights occurred in 2002 when then-California Governor Gray Davis signed into law the nation’s first paid family leave law. The new California statute provides up to six weeks of partial income replacement for family leave to care for a newborn or newly adopted child, or to care for a relative with a serious health condition, funded through a small increase in employee payroll contributions to a state disability insurance fund.

The enactment of the FMLA in 1993 was an important first step in helping working Americans balance the demands of their jobs and their families. As IAM members know all too well, however, the FMLA has its limitations, and needs expansion. Unfortunately, unless and until we elect a worker-friendly White House and Congress, we cannot expect expansion of FMLA rights at the federal level and, indeed, face an uphill battle to preserve the existing law and regulations.