The Decisions That Are Made With The Family Medical Leave Act.
Congress enacted the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (the "FMLA") in response to growing concerns about inadequate job security for employees who had serious health conditions that prevented them from working for temporary periods. Under the FMLA, eligible employees are entitled to twelve weeks of leave during any twelve-month period for the birth and care of a newborn child, placement of a child for adoption or foster care, care for an immediate family member (spouse, child, parent) with a serious health condition, or medical leave for the employee's own serious health condition. Eligibility for FMLA leave arises when an employee has worked for a covered employer for at least twelve months and 1250 hours during the twelve-month period prior to the requested leave.
The thesis of my paper is that legislation regulating the employment relationship may serve as an ethical basis for human resource decisions by employers. The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA) provides an ethical basis for human resource decisions involving conflicts between an employer's interest in having an employee at work to pursue the organization's needs and an employee's need to be away from work to attend to serious family needs that include the serious health condition of the employee, a family member, or the addition of a new child to the employee's family.
Family medical leave laws promote ethical human resource decisions because they give employers a framework for making decisions that balance important and conflicting needs in an employee's personal life with the needs of the employer. Ongoing application of this framework allows employers to develop ethical habits that are the core of ethical business decisions. The habits formed by employers in complying with family medical leave laws may then serve as the basis for ethical human resource decisions in areas not currently regulated by family medical leave laws.
