Family Medical Leave Reform Would Give Workers More Flexibility

Dec. 19, 2017

4:31 p.m.

Photo credit: legis.wisconsin.gov

Legislative Democrats have introduced the Wisconsin Family Medical Insurance Act to reform Wisconsin’s Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA). In 1988, Wisconsin became one of the first states to pass a state-level FMLA. The U.S. Congress followed Wisconsin’s lead and passed a federal FMLA in 1993.

It is now time to update our FMLA to make it more flexible so people can take off to care for their grandparents, grandchildren, siblings and eligible family members deployed overseas by our military. Currently, the law allows people to take up to eight weeks off to care for their child, spouse, domestic partner or parents. In addition, the threshold requiring employer participation in FMLA would be reduced from 50 employees to 25 in order to allow more Wisconsinites to take advantage of this family friendly program. We also expand the time an employee can take off from work to up to 12 weeks.

A prime component of our proposal will be the creation of the Wisconsin Family Medical Leave Insurance Act. The insurance program would be funded by employees who would contribute a percentage of their paycheck into a trust fund that will be used to compensate them a percentage of their pay while they are on family or medical leave. The Department of Workforce Development, in consultation with the Office of the Commissioner of Insurance, will determine the percentage each employee contributes.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, most workers in the private sector service industry do not have paid sick leave. In addition, many lower-waged workers cannot afford to take a sick day because they simply can’t afford to miss a day’s pay. Studies have shown that workers without access to paid sick leave are more likely to get injured on the job and expose co-workers and customers to contagious diseases. These reforms will give more people the option of taking time off to care for sick family members—or themselves—when they have a serious health condition that prohibits them from working while still receiving some income.

Senate Bill 490

While Legislative Democrats are fighting to expand opportunities for employees to care for sick family members as well as themselves, our Republican colleagues are seeking to reduce Wisconsin’s family medical leave benefits. The GOP-sponsored Wisconsin Senate Bill 490 is an attempt to “federalize” the Wisconsin FMLA, which would reduce access to family and medical leave and reduce the quality of leave for many Wisconsin workers.

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If the Republican proposal is passed, fewer Wisconsin part-time employees would be covered. In addition, the Wisconsin FMLA is less restrictive regarding how employees can choose whether to substitute accrued paid or unpaid leave that is provided by their employer for their qualifying FMLA leave. Furthermore, Wisconsin’s FMLA is more permissive regarding the ability of employees to take intermittent leave.

Wisconsin was once was a leader in providing family medical leave, and we need to reclaim that position. Family dynamics have changed since Wisconsin passed FMLA in 1988; today, we need a law recognizing that providing healthcare to a sick family member entails generations of family chipping in. Additionally, we need to join California, New Jersey, Rhode Island, New York and Washington as states that provide paid family leave insurance so people can afford to take off and care for themselves or a sick relative.

Janis Ringhand is a Wisconsin state senator from Evansville; Sondy Pope represents Mount Horeb in the Wisconsin State Assembly.

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Comments (1)

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mixed feelings on this

Paid sick days was really an extension of "salaried" pay, where you are there to get the job done, regardless of how you personally schedule your day.

One observation I have seen is how "the working class" uses paid sick days... they use it to get time off when they are healthy and want to get to that sports game, attend that concert, whatever, and they know that they will not be granted a vacation day. When they are sick, they keep coming to work anyway, so do not give me that line that workers use their sick days for when they are sick or a family member is sick. - FMLA is just an opportunity for long term sick day abuse to many people. -- Hear me people? It is YOU WORKERS that are the problem with your attitude towards work professionalism. You demand it from others, but won't give any of it back.

When people are in business for themselves, such as the small business or farm, there is no such thing anyway. When you stop working for your customers, you get no pay, it is as simple as that. They won't want to be forced to provide sick pay or FMLA for their cash-based hires.

From the view of the corporate owner, the medium and large businesses, they need all paid hours to be productive hours, especially in the face of global competition from places with low pay and no benefits, and I'm not talking about "high benefits, socialist" Europe. They out-sourced to Mexico before we did. The need for more output per labor dollar is made even more important after our current tax plan's reduction of taxes on business from 35% to 21%, all the more money to pay out to the owners and executives or to buy another business, not one penny of this gain will be shared with US workers. No need to share or "trickle-down" when our law of supply and demand has so many Americans simply competing with their job-less US neighbors just to have a job. Low pay is better than no pay!

There always was a reason that "income growth" or pay raises has gone to the top 10% for the last 2 decades, Middle Class increases that failed to keep pace with the rising cost of living (which is why we want Trump's tax relief to pay us "catch-up"), and no increases to the general working classes filling the bottom half of this country. Too many jobs already lost to robots, "smart-machines", and foreign labor. But those in charge will make sure they get their own pay increases, "Me first" they say (just like YOU say it about the people below you.)

And I will say it again... what is better than an automatic machine in the US that replaces high-paid skilled craft labor with less-skilled "warehouse delivery" labor? ... Easy, that same machine relocated to a country where that low-skill labor is dirt-cheap, and re-programmed to their local language so they cannot ship the job back to the US.

Wake up people, your putting blinders on and ignoring what is going on around you is exactly what the people who are really in charge want from you. Go ahead, ignore what happens outside your tiny domain.

SE Wisc. Citizen more than 3 years ago