Medical Leave Rule Excludes Active Duty

Medical Leave Rule Excludes Active Duty

The government has issued new policy guidelines on when civilian employers are obliged to allow employees to take leave to attend to a severely wounded family member or to matters related to a military deployment.

The good news is that employee caregivers must be allowed to take up to 26 weeks of unpaid leave to assist an active duty, Guard or Reserve family member who is rendered medically unfit to perform duties due to an injury or illness in the line of duty.

The bad news, incredibly, is that family members of active duty personnel are excluded from the other half of the rule that allows up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave from a civilian employer to handle family needs in conjunction with a servicemember’s deployment. That part of the rule covers only family members of Guard/Reserve personnel and retirees who are called back to service.

MOAA’s staff had worked with the Department of Labor on parts of the rules, and most of our suggestions were included to allow leave for childcare needs, family support/assistance meetings, financial and legal meetings, school-related meetings, and counseling, R&R time during a deployment, and seven days prior to a short-notice deployment.

But it was a shock to learn that Labor Department lawyers rendered an opinion that the specific language of the law wouldn’t allow inclusion of active duty family members for the deployment portion. MOAA is already meeting with lawmakers to get that corrected when Congress reconvenes.

The new rules follow standard FMLA qualifiers so the coverage is only required when firms have 50 or more employees, and the employee must have been with the firm for at least a year to qualify for the unpaid leave.