TO:                 Members of the Wisconsin State Assembly

FROM:           John Metcalf, Director, Human Resources Policy

DATE:            January 28, 2010

 

Background
Current Wisconsin and Federal Law require employers with 50 or more employees to provide Family and Medical Leave (FMLA) to their employees.  The length of leave entitlements vary between the State and Federal laws, as do the qualifying requirements and administration of the two laws.  Because of these variations the FMLA’s are among the most complex that Wisconsin employers must administer.

 

School Conference and Activity Leave
AB 116 creates an additional leave entitlement of up to 16 hours of school conference and activities leave in a 12−month period under Wisconsin’s FMLA for any employee of an employer, employing at least 50 individuals on a permanent basis in this state.  School conference and activities leave may be taken to attend school conferences or classroom activities relating to the employee’s child that cannot be scheduled during nonworking hours.  In addition, school conference and activities leave may be taken to observe and monitor the day care, preschool, or pre-kindergarten services or programming received by an employee’s child, if that observation and monitoring cannot be scheduled during nonworking hours.

 

WMC POSITION – OPPOSE
WMC strongly supports conformity of the existing federal and Wisconsin FMLA’s that are currently difficult to administer.  Until broad conformity occurs between Wisconsin’s FMLA and the federal FMLA, WMC opposes any expansion of the state FMLA, including the creation of an additional form of mandated leave.  Further, in any given session of the U.S. Congress and the Wisconsin Legislature, legislation to expand the existing state and federal FMLA’s are proposed, as well as to mandate further types of leave for other reasons.  However, no legislation has been enacted to attempt to coordinate these mandates – creating a significant and growing problem with the administration of mandated as well as employer provided employee leave benefits in U.S. and Wisconsin work places.

 

Many aspects of this bill are unclear or ill defined.  It is not clear who makes the determination if a school conference or activity cannot be scheduled during non-working hours.  “Undue disruption” of business operations has never been adequately defined under the FMLA.

 

Increasingly, businesses provide banks of leave for undefined purposes: vacation, illness and other personal and family needs.  Mandating specific types of leave for specified purposes runs counter to the trends in employment and benefits law, and creates further administrative complexities and opportunities for litigation.

 

For these reasons, WMC asks the members of the Wisconsin State Assembly to oppose Assembly Bill 116.