by Since 1993, the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) has provided unpaid, job-protected leave for employees with a serious health condition or who are caring for a family member with a serious health condition. (For more information on the FMLA, including what employees are eligible and under what circumstances, see https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fmla/.) In 2008, in recognition of the unique needs of military families, military family leave provisions were added to the FMLA. Employers are often very familiar with the requirements of the FMLA for employees needing leave for health reasons, childbirth, or adoption but are less familiar with the FMLA provisions regarding military family leave.
Whether the FMLA covers an employer or an employee is the same for all types of FMLA leave. Private employers with at least 50 employees are covered by the FMLA, as are state, local, and federal government employers, regardless of the number of employees. Employees working for a covered employer need to meet the following criteria to qualify for leave under FMLA:
- Have worked for the employer for at least 12 months;
- Have at least 1250 hours of service in the 12 months before taking the leave; and
- Work at a location where the employer has at least 50 employees within 75 miles of the requesting employee’s worksite.
Whether the covered employee is eligible for military family leave means applying different requirements than are generally applicable to other types of FMLA leave. Covered employees may be eligible for military family leave under the following circumstances:
- Exigency Leave: If the spouse, parent, son, or daughter of the employee is a military member who is deployed or has been notified of an impending deployment to a foreign country, the employee may be eligible to take up to a total of 12 workweeks of FMLA leave for qualifying exigencies, such as making different daycare arrangements for the military member’s children or attending official military ceremonies.
- Military Caregiver Leave: If the employee is the spouse, parent, son, daughter, or next-of-kin of a service member, the employee may be eligible for leave of up to a total of 26 workweeks of unpaid leave during a single 12-month period to take care of the military relative if the relative has a qualifying serious injury or illness.
It is recommended that employers review the details of military family leave entitlement any time someone requests a leave that could qualify. Many circumstances must be established to be eligible for exigency or military caregiver leave. There are definitions of terms such as ‘covered service member,’ ‘parent,’ ‘child,’ ‘qualifying serious injury or illness,’ and others. The terms may be defined differently than how the same terms are defined under general FMLA law and regulation.
The federal Department of Labor (DOL) provides a wealth of detailed information on what employees and employers need to do to comply with military family leave under the FMLA. For flowcharts and details on how military family leaves are administered, see https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/WHD/legacy/files/FMLA_Military_Guide_ENGLISH.pdf.
