Family Medical Leave Act - Research Paper Example

The FMLA also protects employees who take leave to care for a sick parent or child, and who take leave for a serious illness of their own. However, while the FMLA is a definitively a positive thing for individuals who need to care for a newborn or adopted child, it is often not taken, because the employer does not have to pay the employee during leave, and, in the case of taking leave for “serious” illnesses, the FMLA is often abused by employees who simply do not want to come to work. Furthermore, the employer does not have to give leave, depending on the size of the employer and the status of the employee.

If the employee and the employer fit the criteria in the law, then the employer is required to give leave for legitimate reasons, such as caring for a newborn or adopted child. However, there are always cases of employers firing the employees anyway, and, in these cases, employees do have certain rights. This project will explain what the FMLA is, how it protects men and women from being fired for taking care of newborns, how the law is abused by employees, how employers may circumvent the statute, and what rights employees have when they are unlawfully terminated for taking protected leave.

The Family Medical Leave Act. . In 2010, the FMLA was expanded to include members of the military who are deployed to a foreign country, and for veterans who need to undergo medical treatment, recuperation or therapy. The requirements for employees who want to take advantage of the FMLA are that the employee must have worked for the employer for a total of 12 months, the employee must have actively worked for the employer at least 1,250 hours in the past 12 months, and that the employer has at least 50 employees (Jones, 2012).

Although, with regards to parental leave, the FMLA allows both mothers and fathers to take leave, one of the focuses of the Act, according to Grossman (2004), is to specifically protect women from discrimination. This is because, unlike men, women have historically been subjected to discriminatory practices, as states have enacted laws which have discouraged mothers from working outside the home. Such laws cited by Grossman (2004) included an Illinois law which prohibited women from the law profession; Michigan, which prohibited women from tending bar; Oregon, which limited the number of hours that women could work in certain environments; and Florida, which prohibited women from serving as jurors.

Moreover, as Grossman (2004) notes, even after each of these laws were challenged, and struck down, by the United States Supreme Court, discrimination against women still remained, in that women often were not allowed to take administrative leave to care for children. The FMLA was designed to combat this discrimination against women, and it has been combined with the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, explained below, to ensure that women are allowed to keep their jobs after having given birth to