President Bush signed the previously vetoed National Defense Authorization Act, which contains provisions expanding FMLA rights for military families.

There are two significant changes:

Leave to Care for a Wounded Service Member.  A “spouse, son, daughter, parent, or next of kin” is entitled to 26 weeks of leave to care for a recovering service member unable to perform his or her duties.  This change is effective immediately.

Leave for Call to Active Duty.  A “spouse, son, daughter, parent or next of kin” of a service member on active duty or notified of a call to duty is entitled to 12 weeks of unpaid leave for any “qualifying exigency.”  This change will not be fully effective until the Secretary of Labor issues regulations defining “qualifying exigency.”  However, in the meantime, the DOL encourages employees to exercise good faith by providing this type of leave to employees who might reasonably be covered.

The full text of the amended FMLA can be found here.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 30th, 2008 at 6:54 am and is filed under Employment Law News, FMLA, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.