Family And Medical Leave Act Balancing life And work

MARINE CORPS LOGISTICS BASE BARSTOW, CA, UNITED STATES

Story by Keith Hayes

Marine Corps Logistics Base Barstow

The Family and Medical Leave Act allows a 12-week entitlement of sick, annual or leave without pay (LWOP) for employees and or immediate family members who work aboard Marine Corps Logistics Base Barstow, California, with a serious health condition or for the birth of a child. The entitlement secures an employees’ job for the duration.

Aja Bateman is a Human Resources Specialist for the Labor and Employee Relations Branch, at MCLB Barstow, whose duties include administering the FMLA program.

Bateman said the need to provide the FMLA entitlement arose out of government employees’ concerns that if they took time off, for example, to have a baby or to care for a family member with serious medical problems, that they might not have a job when they returned to work.

Congress recognized the need to “manage the work-life balance” two decades ago when the FMLA entitlement was signed into effect on February 5, 1993.

“The FMLA guarantees that if you have to take time off to care for yourself or a family member with qualifying medical exigencies then your job will be there when you return,” Bateman said.

When applying for FMLA, employees must either complete an FMLA Medical Certification Form or provide sufficient medical documentation to support a serious health condition. The certification form (WH-380) is available at the Human Resources Office.

The employee must provide the certification form or the medical documentation to their supervisor within 15 calendar days, but not later than 30 days.

The physician or other health care provider completes the certification form or provides the employee with sufficient medical documentation. The employee then includes this documentation with a completed OPM 71 (leave slip) whereby he/she invokes his/her entitlement to FMLA.

The employee applying for FMLA entitlement must have been employed for at least 12 months before he/she can initially apply for FMLA.

Reasons employees may apply for FMLA:

•the birth of a child and to care for the newborn child within one year of birth;

•the placement with the employee of a child for adoption or foster care and to care for the newly placed child within one year of placement;

•to care for the employee’s spouse, child, or parent who has a serious health condition;

•a serious health condition that makes the employee unable to perform the essential functions of his or her job;

•any qualifying exigency arising out of the fact that the employee’s spouse, son, daughter, or parent is a covered military member on “covered active duty;” or

•Twenty-six workweeks of leave during a single 12-month period to care for a covered service member with a serious injury or illness if the eligible employee is the service member’s spouse, son, daughter, parent, or next of kin (military caregiver leave).

The 480 hours per a 12-month period can be used in two ways, either on a continuous basis or on an intermittent bases.

Once FMLA is approved:

(1) if intermittent, the employee must contact the supervisor every time they are going to be absent from work and let the supervisor know the type of leave he wishes to use i.e. sick, annual or leave without pay;

(2) if continuous, the employee does not contact the supervisor every day of absence but he must let the supervisor know the type of leave he wishes to use during the absence. “After an employee has submitted the proper completed FMLA forms, if they have to take some time off to care for their wife, for example, they call up their supervisor and say they’re invoking the FMLA,” she said.

“The 480 hours can be used in a 12-month period or in one long block of leave,” she said, “but at the end of the 12-month period, the employee has to apply for the FMLA again before using it.”

To obtain more information regarding the Family and Medical Leave Act, contact Aja Bateman, at the Human Resources Office in building 15 aboard MCLB Barstow or call (760) 577-6915.

Some of the information contained in this story was gathered from the Website at https://www.dol.gov/whd/fmla/. Information is also available on www.opm.gov.