By BLR Founder and CEO Bob Brady
Bob’s support of Family and Medical Act (FLMA) leave paid for by … somebody … generated a lot of heat … and several proposed solutions.
Bob Brady is off covering a conference this week, so we thought we would give you a taste of the e-mails he’s received since writing his column on the proposal to have employers pay workers out on Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) time off.
“Taste” is probably the right word, because these comments were hot! It’s obvious, as Chip Smith, a senior HR professional in Houston said, “you hit a nerve.”
You may recall that while Bob saw paid leave as an important societal benefit, he didn’t take a position on who should pay—employer, employee, or the taxpayers—though he did allude to a California plan now in operation in which the time workers take off to bond with a new child is partially paid for through a payroll tax.
E-mailers varied as to what extent employees or taxpayers should pay for leave, but almost all of them were sure it shouldn’t be the employer.
“I’ve never understood why anyone would think it’s the employer’s responsibility,” wrote Eunice Montfort. “The employer does not get a vote in whether or not the woman gets pregnant or whether the family adopts a child. The employer has nothing to do with whether or not someone becomes ill. Why is it then the employer’s responsibility to foot the bill for the leave?
“We’ve become an ‘entitlement-minded’” society, she added. “We think we’re entitled to everything, regardless if whether or not the money is there to pay for it.”
Keep up with changes in FMLA. Click here.
Tom Moore, an HR director, was one of several e-mailers who worried about fraud in the system. “If all FMLA leave were legitimate, it might be OK,” he wrote. “But doctors will certify anything, and we have abuse that is out of control in our FMLA leave [now].”
Some e-mailers reacted to a recent study that showed the U.S. is one of the few industrialized nations in the world not currently offering paid leave. E-mailer James Bruce noted that, “It seems you favor the liberal European view of workers’ rights. All I have to say to that is be careful what you wish for. You just might get it.”
Tom Lampron, a project manager with Aquatic Development Group, agreed with Bruce. “Look at those countries around the world that pay families for leave,” he wrote. “Those families can’t even buy a car because they are taxed so much.”
Lampron then went on to offer his solution for the issue of paid leave. “We should save our vacation/sick time/personal time or even 3 to 6 months of pay to plan for family leave and not be living from paycheck to paycheck.”
BLR’s FMLA Compliance Guide program will track changes in the law as they occur. Try it free for 30 days. Click here.
James Claeys, who works with GE Corporate, had his plan, as well. “Fix the Flexible Spending Account legislation so amounts not used in the year can be rolled over,” he wrote. “FMLA leaves would be an authorized use of the funds.”
Supporters of having employers pay were few. One came from a writer identified only by screen name, but with a notation that the e-mail came from a large labor organization.
“Impose a payroll tax on the working man in case he gets sick? Absurd in light of the average CEO’s total compensation package,” the e-mailer declared. “Tame the greed, and increasing the cost of your ‘widget’ [to pay for employee leave] becomes unnecessary.”
Finally, Joyce Frank felt that a form of paid leave is already here. “There are employees who have family issues and will see a mental health therapist and get [family medical leave] for their own condition, thus opening the door for short-term disability … so, in my world, FML gets paid for, one way or the other.”
FMLA may be changing. Keep up with the BLR FMLA Compliance Guide. Click here to try it FREE for 30 days.
I agree that employers should take some responsibility. Keeping the job for the person being out and when a person has work for them for a certain amt. of years being whatever was agreed to to start with(policy)
I had a grown daughter just recently who had an brain aneursym and I needed to be out to help with her but since my job would not have been held and I would not have been paid, I could not afford to be out, so ended having to pay for someone to help take care of her and still are after almost a year. It would have been nice after working with this company for 14 years to have been thought better of. We do not even have a policy. It is not being being taken care of by your employer, it is being better thought of. Being human
FMLA should be continued very similar to how it is now. Allow both paid or unpaid leave for FMLA. Employees should be able to use annual vacation leave, sick leave, or contributions from other sources to pay for FMLA time off.
Employers should be mandated to give a certain minimum amount of paid sick leave time off (similar to what San Francisco has recently required). However, employees who accrue over the “maximum” amount of sick leave hours to use for regular (e.g. non-FMLA) sick days should be able to roll-over the overage into an “FMLA-only” balance which could be tapped for extended FMLA-covered events.
Employees should also be provided optional supplemental policies (similar to short-term disability) that they could use to pay for FMLA absences.
Employees should also be able to divert a certain amount of pay into a “paid sick day” account that could be tapped for FMLA-related time away from work. Employees should also be able direct accrued overtime or comptime worked hours (e.g. over 40 hours/week at the time-and-a-half rate for non-exempt or hour-for-hour rate for exempt employees if the employer allows this accrual for exempt employees) into such an account.
Additionally, employees should be able to use any real funds in medical-related accounts (e.g. flexible spending accounts, HSA accounts, etc) to cover FMLA-related days off from work (subject to a minimum threshold that must be maintained).
These types of initiatives would put the burden on the employee to plan for family-related emergencies, but would also give them the right to take this time off “paid”, assuming they planned well enough to fund it as paid time off. If not, the employee should still be able to take the time off as unpaid, according to the current criteria, but shouldn’t complain when they don’t get compensated during this time. These types of initiatives would add some additional administrative burden on employers to set up paid-FMLA banks/plans, but would be in the best interest for everyone at minimal financial expense to the employer.
I think employees should be responsible for their financing their leaves of absence. While reading others’ comments, an idea came to mind — allow EE’s on qualified Federal or State Family Leave to access a specified % from their 401k plan – OR – create a similar auto payroll deduction benefit that helps people save $$ for such events (pref. pre-tax). This may encourage ER’s to implement 401k plans and EE’s to participate – and if it turns out the EE does not ever need to access their account due to a leave, they still reap a valuable benefit.