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Family leave backers make pre-emptive strike to defend law

Date Posted: July 8 2005

WASHINGTON (PAI) - Backers of the Family and Medical Leave Act - which labor helped push through Congress - are defending it against strong business lobbying to get GOP President George W. Bush to curb FMLA's benefits and impact.

But whether they will succeed is unknown: The Bush Labor Department says it may rewrite rules implementing FMLA, but has no timetable for that yet. That led FMLA backers to make FMLA's case, before big business wields its clout against family leave.

Supporters argued for FMLA at a June 23 Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee "roundtable" hearing. Since it was enacted in 1993, they noted, FMLA helped 50 million workers spend needed time with newborns, aging and ill parents, or recovering from their own illnesses, without fear of losing their jobs.

"I understand there's an enormous amount of pressure from the White House on the Labor Department to revisit the regulations," said Debra Ness, President of the National Partnership for Women and Families, whose group helped draft FMLA and lead the fight for it. "The proposals from these (business) folks would roll back protections working families need," she added after the roundtable ended.

And when Sen. Michael Enzi (R-Wyo.), the committee chairman, sought suggestions for FMLA's future, supporters argued for its improvement, principally adding pay.

Harvard professor Dr. Jody Heymann noted 164 of 168 nations in the world have paid medical leave, but not the U.S. Ness said FMLA does not cover the 59 million workers whose firms employ fewer than 50 people. Millions more who could use it, she said, do not because they can't afford to take unpaid leave.

By contrast, one business speaker called for exempting firms with fewer than 100 workers, not 50, from FMLA. Others want to make it more difficult for workers to take family or medical leave, especially "intermittent" leave for things such as doctors' appointments.

FMLA, the very first bill President Clinton signed, lets workers take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave per year to be with newborns, for family illnesses, to recover from their own illnesses or to care for their elderly parents. It applies only to workers in businesses with at least 50 employees, and says workers may take "intermittent" leave for such things as doctor's visits, short treatments for chronic ailments and counseling.

But business groups, both at the Senate roundtable and in pressure on the Labor Department, allege workers abuse the law, but offered little evidence. They charge, for example, that some workers use it as a substitute for vacation.

FMLA supporters disputed all those notions. They also said FMLA helps firms by enhancing worker loyalty, creating new training opportunities for other workers who step in and substitute and boosting employee morale, among other virtues.