Employers have expand job protections for military members and their families who need time off, to comply with regulations finalized by the U.S. Department of Labor Feb. 5.
Major provisions, which implement changes to the Family and Medical Leave Act, include:
- Defining a covered veteran, consistent with statutory limitations, as limited to veterans discharged or released under conditions other than dishonorable five years prior to the date the employee’s military caregiver leave begins.
- Creating a flexible definition for serious injury or illness of a covered veteran, that includes four alternatives only one of which must be met.
- Permitting eligible employees to obtain certification of a servicemember’s serious injury or illness (both current servicemembers and veterans) from any health care provider as defined in the FMLA regulations, not only those affiliated with the DOD, VA, or TRICARE networks (as was permitted under the 2009 regulations).
- Extending qualifying exigency leave to eligible employees who are family members of members of the Regular Armed Forces and adding the requirement for all military members to be deployed to a foreign country in order to be on ‘covered active duty under the FMLA.
- Increasing the amount of time an employee may take for qualifying exigency leave related to the military member’s Rest and Recuperation (R&R) leave from five days to up to 15 days.
- Creating an additional qualifying exigency leave category for parental care leave to provide care necessitated by the covered active duty of the military member for the military member’s parent who is incapable of self-care.
- Incorporating the statutory hours of service eligibility requirements for airline flight crew employees for FMLA leave.
- Creating a unique method of calculation of leave for airline flight crew employees, and establishing that FMLA leave for intermittent or reduced schedule leave usage, taken by airline flight crew employees, must be accounted for using an increment no greater than one day
As a result of the changes, some employers may have to amend some internal procedures, according to Los Angeles employment attorney Maria Audero (see It’s Not to Early to Prepare for Likely Adoption of FMLA Exigency Rules). For instance, employers will need to plan for increased time off by covered service members and employees with spouses in the military. And employers who want to change the rules for documenting an employees need for leave will need to incorporate their new requirements in their employee handbooks.
See the full story for more, including a detailed chart comparing the old and new regulations. The new provisions go into effect March.