The U.S. Department of Labor recently issued new guidance on the federal Family Medical Leave Act that has upended the notion of what qualifies as leave under the statute.
Its Wage and Hour Division in February issued a guidance letter noting that employees with a serious illness may use intermittent leave under the FMLA to work a reduced schedule for “an indefinite period.” That is a significant departure from the typical FMLA scenario where workers will take days, weeks or months off from work for a qualifying reason under the law.
The ruling paves the way for workers with serious health conditions that may limit how many hours they can work in a day to do reduced hours, which will count towards the law’s leave limit of 12 working weeks per 12-month period.
In other words, if an FMLA-eligible employee reduced their working hours by two every day, they would never exhaust their allowed leave (two hours a day for an entire year).
The FMLA entitles eligible employees to take unpaid job-protected leave for qualifying family and medical reasons with continuation of group health insurance coverage. New Guidance: Workers Can Take FMLA Leave in Hourly Increments