Family Medical Leave Act

This page is provided as a service to our membership and interested parties.

A Federal Law which provides leave for qualified employees for certain medical emergencies

FMLA Overview

  • The Act will not supersede a Collective Bargaining Agreement.
  • To qualify for the FMLA you must work for a covered employer. A covered employer is an employer that has 50 or more total employees. In the case of a municipality, all municipal employees are counted for the purposes of qualifying under the FMLA.
  • You must have worked for more than 1250 hours. That includes actual time, overtime, on call time- measured from when the FMLA request was made, not including sick time, vacation time, jury duty, personal day, military leave, and compensatory time.

You are eligible for 12 weeks of unpaid leave during the year for the following reasons:

  • For the birth of a child or a difficult pregnancy
  • For the adoption of a child or for foster care
  • Care for an employees spouse, child, stepchild, foster child, adopted child or biological parent with a serious medical condition. In-laws are not included
  • Your own serious health condition

Leave must be approved by your employer, and they may require that you take paid leave first- exhausting your vacation and/of personal days, then reverting to unpaid leave. Compensatory time cannot be used, sick time can not be used for taking care of another but can be used for your own illness.At the employees or employer’s option, certain kinds of paid leave may be substituted for unpaid leave.

Maintenance of Medical Benefits

Maintenance of medical benefits must remain on the same terms as if the employee was still working. Employee must return to work and the end of the twelve week period or be responsible for the premium that the employer paid, unless illness is so severe that the employee cannot return to work.

Job Restoration Rights

  • You must get your job back when you come back to work.
  • Regarding seniority, an employee is not entitled to accrue time.
  • FMLA time does not count against an employee toward retirement time.

Employer Obligations

  • The employer must post a FMLA policy conspicuously where it can be read by employees.
  • The employer must provide written guidelines on the FMLA Law.
  • The employer must provide their employees with written documentation of what the employees obligations are.
  • The employer is obligated to invoke FMLA.

Employee Obligations

  • The employee must notify employer of their need to take the leave as soon as practical or 30 days in advance.
  • The employee must provide medical certification to support their claim in writing.

Unlawful Acts by Employers

The FMLA makes it unlawful for any employer to:

  • Interfere with, restrain, or deny the exercise of any right provided under FMLA
  • To discharge or discriminate against any person for opposing any practice made unlawful by FMLA or for involvement in any proceeding under for relating to FMLA

If you are a Nassau Police Conference member and have any questions concerning this law feel free to contact a Board Officer, or your P.B.A. attorney.
For those of you reading this page are not member of the NPC and who think your employment qualifies for FMLA but does not abide by the above outline, we urge you to contact your union representative, or your local Department of Labor.