The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) was passed with bipartisan support and was signed into law on February 5, 1993, by President Clinton. It provides eligible employees with job-protected unpaid leave for certain family and medical reasons, and to remain covered by their group health insurance. The FMLA is considered a landmark law and has provided millions of workers with the opportunity to care for themselves or their family members.
FMLA allows workers to take up to 12 weeks per year of unpaid leave to bond with a newborn, newly adopted, or newly placed child; care for a seriously ill child, spouse, or parent; or care for their own serious health condition. Amendments to the act have extended the protections to allow workers with family in the military to take time away from work to attend to situations arising from a parent, spouse, son, or daughter's foreign deployment and up to 26 weeks of leave to care for a service member with a serious injury or illness.
Since 1993, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) department’s Wage and Hour Division has helped thousands of workers who have been denied leave, unjustly terminated, or have lost health care coverage during leave; in addition to remedies including job and benefits restoration, the division has recovered more than $63 million in back wages for affected workers. In fiscal year 2022, the Wage and Hour Division investigated 780 FMLA complaints and recovered more than $870,000 in back wages for violations ranked most significant.
Marking the 30th anniversary of the passage of FMLA, President Biden held a press conference where he called for nationwide paid family and medical leave. Paid family and medical leave is already offered on the state level, in states such as Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Oregon. Paid family and medical leave is beginning in Delaware, Maryland, and Colorado. Maine and Nevada require employers to provide paid leave for any reason. Other jurisdictions have or will have other paid leave requirements.
As many companies have a renewed focus on the health and well-being of employees and their families, the DOL continues to issue resources, not just penalties. They recently announced that they have created new resources to assist workers who have cancer or have family members with cancer to understand their rights under FMLA. You can learn more about that here and read about frequently asked questions on FMLA here.