Leave law expanded for veterans, caregivers

PHOENIX — Some new changes in federal law will require employers to provide free time off to workers in more situations.

Attorney Jennifer Keyser, whose law firm specializes in labor law, warned that companies that don't alter their policies to comply could find themselves in legal hot water.

Central to the issue is the Family Medical Leave Act, a 1993 federal law that requires employers with at least 50 workers to grant 12 weeks of unpaid leave during any 12-month period under certain circumstances, and without fear of being fired.

Most covered employers are probably familiar with the general terms that govern birth and care of a newborn, a worker who becomes a foster or adoptive parent or providing care for an immediate family member with a serious health condition.

Last year Congress expanded the law to benefit the families of those in the military. Just last month, President Obama signed legislation expanding that even more.

Potentially most significant is a change that allows worker to take up to 26 weeks off to provide care for a veteran who is undergoing treatment for a condition that originated from the family member's military service.

Keyser, an attorney with the law firm of Ballard Spahr, said the 2008 version governed only those caring for active members of the armed forces, the reserves or the National Guard. Family members of those already discharged, she said, were not entitled to time off.

This change, she said, is designed to cover the treatment of conditions that did not become obvious until after the person already was discharged. That includes post-traumatic stress disorders.

But the condition has to arise within five years after discharge.

A separate section of the new law provides up to 26 weeks off without pay to care for a service member or veteran who was injured on active duty and subsequently suffers an aggravation or recurrence of that injury. The prior law, by contrast, allows leave to a caregiver on multiple occasions only when the injury or illness became serious enough to be considered an entirely new event.

Finally, not all of the changes require some illness or injury.

The new law also expands what the federal government considers "exigency'' leave, where a family member needs to take time off to do things like child care, preparing a will or making financial arrangements.

Until now, that option was available only when the family member of the employee was in the military reserve or National Guard. The change approved by Congress extends that to those in the active duty military.

But this leave is limited to 12 weeks.

"People need to start reviewing their policies to be sure they're compliant with the new law,'' she said. That, however, may be easier said than done.

"The problem is, we have no direction on what being 'compliant' means,'' Keyser said. The reason is that Congress directed the U.S. Department of Labor to craft regulations spelling out exactly how the new provisions should be implemented.

She advised companies to be alert now if an employee comes to a supervisor with one of these issues.

"Everybody has to make their own good-faith effort to try to comply,'' Keyser explained.

"I don't think noncompliance is safe,'' she continued. "But I do think it's going to take some time to iron out what this all really means.''