Clinton Seeks Expansion Of Leave Act
President Clinton on Saturday proposed an expansion of the popular but controversial Family and Medical Leave Act, and promised a nationwide campaign to make an estimated 67 million eligible workers more aware of the available benefits.
The expansion, if approved by Congress, would allow eligible workers a maximum of 24 hours of unpaid leave a year for such everyday duties as attending parent-teacher conferences or taking a child or an elderly relative to a doctor’s appointment. While workers would lose pay during this leave, they would be shielded by the law against any other penalty.
In his weekly Saturday radio broadcast, Clinton said his proposed expansion of the act would “make our families stronger and our workers more productive - building the kind of country and economy we all want for our children.”
The act now provides up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave every year for the birth of a child, the adoption or initial foster care of a child and care related to serious illness of the worker or the worker’s child, spouse or parent.
Health benefits are maintained during the leave, and workers are guaranteed their job back when they return. Only companies with 50 or more employees are covered.
In a statement clearly designed to refute predictions by critics that the act would harass business, the Labor Department said Saturday that it had received only 6,346 complaints during four years, mostly from workers who said their employers had refused to reinstate them in the same or similar job.
xxxx FOR MORE INFORMATION Call 1 (800) 959-FMLA. Internet users can obtain information though the Department of Labor’s Web site: www.dol.com.