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Yes I agree with your point too. But the sad thing is that sometimes a supervisor's parent is ill, they have no qualms about taking time off. There seems to be a different set of rules for them. Its wrong for those under the supervisor to tend to their ill parent, but yet the supervisor can come and go as they please. This business about not letting people off to attend a parent's funeral or someone in their immediate family is ludicrous. And that is why I would not hesitate to leave such a company in a case like that.
yeah i get your point and its not fair but honestly higher up employees are treated differntly in all aspects. try getting a company to fly you out for an interview or even better pay moving expenses for you for an entry level job...they wont. for a higher level employee they will. its about how much they value you and how much value you bring to the company
yeah i get your point and its not fair but honestly higher up employees are treated differntly in all aspects. try getting a company to fly you out for an interview or even better pay moving expenses for you for an entry level job...they wont. for a higher level employee they will. its about how much they value you and how much value you bring to the company
Oh I already know there are a different set of rules and sometimes rules are made up as they go along. But in the end it can and will bite them in the rear. That was the whole point of my post.
I work in a big company with around 275-300 employees. Everyone is entitled to a month leave of absence during the first three months of the year.
One part-time employee had a mother dying of cancer. There was no definite date set as to when she would die, so it could have taken months, maybe even longer.
Well this employee took a whole month off to care for her mother, and when she asked to extend her unpaid leave, my company basically did not give her the option of doing that. Their philosophy is basically an employee can only have unpaid undetermined leave of absence for dying spouses or children. Other close family is not allowed, even if you live with them.
Do you think this is wrong? Or would granting this employee an undetermined leave open the doors for other employees leaving to take care of close dying relatives?
You're wrong and uninformed. It's not a PHILOSOPHY it's a LAW. And one that you've misstated.
FMLA lays out the requirements for this unpaid leave. ie. How long she worked there and how many hours she's accrued and how long she's allowed to take.
The one month unpaid leave for everyone company policy is very generous. I assume it's because of some seasonal work fluctuations that can be mutually beneficial to both employees and company.
My guess is she did NOT qualify for FMLA beyond the OPTIONAL company policy. Even IF she did, she possibly hurt herself by taking off the month and cutting into the worked hours that she accrued that "year".
They CANNOT change their policies hap haphazardly because then they'd have to treat every single person the same and spend thousands of person hours checking for fraud etc while STILL meeting FMLA law requirements.
Managing FMLA for a company is a HUGE thing. Half the time the company OUTSOURCES it to an HR management company to be sure the law is complied with and everything tracked and documented correctly.
Obviously nobody here complaining OWNS a company! Or is even a manager with responsibility for such things.
Last edited by runswithscissors; 11-04-2013 at 12:22 PM..
This might have been posted earlier; I apologize for not having the time to read every entry on this thread, but I was wondering how an HR department could release my co-worker (after working there for 18 years), post her position and then fill it with someone else from the same department - while she was taking FAMILY MEDICAL LEAVE for only 4 weeks. I'm assuming this is against the law; the very reason it was put in place was to not let this happen. Couldn't the company be fined? Would she have to retain an attorney? This is not a small company, but I didn't think size mattered.
Your company must also be eligible to let you use the privilege, which means it must have at least 50 employees who work within 75 miles of its location. Once again, various states have different provisions, so consult with HR.
So it doesn't matter whether the company is large, but rather whether the office that the employee works in is large.
Something else is important:
Quote:
Eligible employees must have worked for their employer for at least 12 months prior to requesting the leave. And they must also have worked at least 1,250 hours in those 12 months. For someone who works an eight-hour day, that translates to approximately 156 days.
So what matters is not how many years the employee worked for the employer, but how many hours they've worked over the previous twelve months.
And one other thing is very important:
Quote:
A job is guaranteed to you, but not necessarily the same job you had before.
Until your co-worker tries to return to work and is told that there is no job for her, there's nothing to say. There is no provision against hiring someone to do the work of an employee on FML.
Perhaps the most important question, though, is whether you co-worker applied for FMLA consideration. Just saying that you're going to take time off to care for a loved one or whatever isn't necessarily enough.
The funny thing is the ones who ended up being the most heartless about things were the same ones who would complain about how heartless companies had become when it was their own personal situation.
Agreed. When the shoe is on the other foot their tune changes.
This might have been posted earlier; I apologize for not having the time to read every entry on this thread, but I was wondering how an HR department could release my co-worker (after working there for 18 years), post her position and then fill it with someone else from the same department - while she was taking FAMILY MEDICAL LEAVE for only 4 weeks. I'm assuming this is against the law; the very reason it was put in place was to not let this happen. Couldn't the company be fined? Would she have to retain an attorney? This is not a small company, but I didn't think size mattered.
She does not have a legal right to the same position if it is no longer vacant (and there is no law preventing the vacancy from being filled). She does have the right to a position that is substantially equal in pay, benefits, and responsibility. She won't know if she has a case until she returns to work.
Also you choosing to be unemployed for 3 years is not her problem, she had a job, and is covered under federal labor laws, which means she should still have a job.
One problem with FMLA -- once there are laws regarding leave, many businesses will stick to the law.
My uncle had an extended illness before FMLA and they let him come back to work as soon as he was able -- but that was way more than 12 weeks, he was in a hospital for longer than that and then had a few months recovery. They just kept him as an employee. He was a good worker, reliable employee and they rewarded him for that.
Once the laws were put into place, it becomes tougher to make exceptions -- what you do for one, you have to do for all -- even the most pathetic employees. If one wants 12 weeks to stay home with a dying relative, another wants 6 months to be a stay at home mother and another decides fibromyalgia should mean you work only if you feel like it.
Don't be an *******, let the employee work from home okay? Or let her work at work and take personal phone calls.. The bottom line is as long as it is not affecting her work quality..
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