Mom-friendly policies may be a nice perk but could constitute gender discrimination

Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP, Lexology

The EEOC, and at least some Plaintiffs’ lawyers, are taking the position that employers may not offer more parental leave to a birth mother than to a father, unless justified by medical necessity. Any other outcome, they claim, would constitute discrimination against men on the basis of sex.

Read the story here.

Department of Labor Issues Final FMLA Regulations

From the Wage and Hour Administration Website:

The revised Final Regulations (PDF) respond to over 4,600 public comments received in response to the Department’s February 2008 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) (PDF) , which proposed changes to the current FMLA regulations. The NPRM was developed in response to several U.S. Supreme Court and lower court cases invalidating portions of the current regulations, the passage of amendments to the FMLA included as Section 585(a) of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (Public Law 110-181), and a comprehensive review of the Department’s fifteen years of experience administering the FMLA, including two previous Department of Labor studies of the FMLA (in 1996 and 2001) and over 15,000 public comments received in response to a Request for Information (RFI) (PDF) published in the Federal Register on December 1, 2006, and summarized in the Department’s June 2007 Report on the RFI (PDF).
The Final Regulations (PDF) implement two important new military family leave entitlements for eligible specified family members:
(1) Up to 12 weeks of leave for certain qualifying exigencies arising out of a covered military member's active duty status, or notification of an impending call or order to active duty status, in support of a contingency operation, and
(2) Up to 26 weeks of leave in a single 12-month period to care for a covered servicemember recovering from a serious injury or illness incurred in the line of duty on active duty. Eligible employees are entitled to a combined total of up to 26 weeks of all types of FMLA leave during the single 12-month period.
The Final Regulations (PDF) will become effective on January 16, 2009.

Additional information on the Final Regulations:
Final Regulations (PDF) (HTML)
Press Release
Fact Sheet on the Final Regulations (PDF)
Additional information on the military family leave amendments to the FMLA:
FMLA and the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2008
Title I of the Family and Medical Leave Act, as amended by the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2008
Additional information on the FMLA:
Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) Website
Assistant Secretary Lipnic's Testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on Children and Families, Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (PDF)
Report on the Request for Information Website
FMLA Compliance Assistance Information from the Wage and Hour Division
The Family and Medical Leave Act

http://www.dol.gov/esa/whd/fmla/finalrule.htm

New Jersey Governor Signs Paid Family Leave Bill

Workforce Management

While on leave, employees will receive payments from a state fund to replace two-thirds of their salary, up to a maximum of $524 a week. Lawmakers expect employees, on average, to collect weekly benefits of $415.-->

May 5, 2008
New Jersey Governor Signs Paid Family Leave Bill
New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine on Friday, May 2, signed legislation that will entitle employees in the state to take up to six weeks of paid leave per year after the birth or adoption of a child or to take care of a seriously ill relative.
Under the new law, which will go into effect next year, parents can take paid leave anytime during the first year after a child’s birth or adoption. Employees also can take leave to care for a seriously ill child, spouse, parent or domestic partner receiving inpatient care in a health care facility or under continuing supervision of a health care provider.
While on leave, employees will receive payments from a state fund to replace two-thirds of their salary, up to a maximum of $524 a week. Lawmakers expect employees, on average, to collect weekly benefits of $415.
An employee who applies for paid leave will be eligible for benefits after a waiting period of seven consecutive days. Employers can require an employee to take up to two weeks of unused vacation time before receiving the paid family leave, one week of which would be used to cover the waiting period.
The new benefit will be fully funded through employee payroll deductions, the size of which would be based on salary, with a maximum annual contribution of $33 per employee per year.
Employees’ contributions are to begin starting January 1, while benefits are to be available beginning July 1, 2009.
New Jersey is the third state to enact paid family leave legislation. California passed a similar measure in 2002 and Washington state last year approved a bill that gives employees up to five weeks of paid leave after the birth or adoption of a child, though that law has not yet gone into effect. http://www.workforce.com/section/00/article/25/51/33.html