A handful of House Democrats want to expand the Family and Medical Leave Act so employers are required to give employees time off to attend school events and extracurricular activities.
Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., and other Democrats proposed two bills Thursday aimed at expanding the FLMA, a 1993 law passed under President Bill Clinton. Maloney said the changes are needed to ensure it applies to more families, and gives those families the legal right for time off for nonhealth issues, such as school activities.
“On its own, the FMLA is historic and vitally important, enabling workers to take sufficient time to care for themselves and their families without risk to their jobs or economic security,” she said. “However, as it currently stands, FMLA provisions only extend to approximately 60 percent of the workforce, leaving millions of workers without these protections, but we can change that.”
The FLMA requires all employers to give their workers unpaid leave for medical reasons, without any risk that they will lose their jobs. It allows up to 12 weeks a year for the birth of a child, adoption and taking care of family members with serious health problem.
One of the new Democratic bills would let employees take time off from work “to participate in or attend their children’s and grandchildren’s educational and extracurricular activities.” That bill would also allow time off for “routine family medical needs and to assist elderly relatives.”
A second bill would expand the definition of “family” members covered under the FLMA to include domestic partners, parent-in-laws or others with health problems.
Maloney said the second bill in particular is needed because family structures today are “not one-size-fits-all.” Her office said the bill recognizes that “all families do not look the same.”
Maloney and other Democrats also joined up on a third bill to extend FLMA protections to part-time workers, and a fourth giving parents up to 48 hours per year of unpaid leave to “attend school meetings and events.”
