HRC Back Story

A recent issue came up with the Department of Labor (DoL) and the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA).  The DoL issued a notice that they plan to make changes to some of the regulations governing how the FMLA is administered –and asked groups to comment.  HRC submitted written comments to DoL last Friday detailing our concerns with the proposed rules.  We also made recommendations that FMLA leave be expanded through regulations and legislation to fully protect the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community. 

The FMLA has been a great success and vital to thousand of people during its 15 year existence.  Unfortunately, the new, proposed rules would make it more difficult for all employees to access FMLA leave.  Some of the changes would limit the amount of time an employee has to notify their boss of the need for leave, while other changes give employers greater access to employee medical records.  We hope the DoL will listen to the concerns we and others in the civil rights community have voiced and not adopt any change to the FMLA that would restrict its availability to workers. 

On the contrary, it is vital that access to the FMLA be expanded to include all families.  Under current law same-sex couples and their children are not covered by the FMLA.  We know that expanding the FMLA to ensure GLBT families are fully included is a necessary and important next step in the history of this landmark Act. 

While some of these expansions can’t be done by DoL, there is a bill in Congress that could do this.  The Family and Medical Leave Inclusion Act (H.R. 2792), introduced by Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), would expand the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 to permit an employee to take up to twelve weeks of unpaid leave from work if his or her domestic partner or same-sex spouse has a serious health condition.  It would also permit employees to take unpaid leave to care for a "parent-in-law, adult child, sibling or grandparent." 

We continue to monitor the DoL and speak up against any effort to move backwards on family benefits for our entire community.

You can read the full text of HRC’s submitted comments here  (.pdf).

Find out more information about the Family and Medical Leave Inclusion Act at HRC’s Family Matters.