Debate rages about modifying the Family and Medical Leave Act

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/4714602.html

April 14, 2007, 1:04AM
Is it too much or not enough
Debate rages about modifying the Family and Medical Leave Act

Elizabeth Auster
Newhouse News Service

WASHINGTON — Ken Chenlikas isn’t shy about spouting his opinion of a federal law that allows him and other workers to take unpaid leaves for family or medical problems.

When the 52-year-old loading dock worker from Youngstown, Ohio, heard recently that the Bush administration is thinking of tinkering with the rules for granting leaves, he shot off an e-mail about an accident at work that nearly cost him his right foot.

The accident in 2003 kept him home for a year and required two surgeries, 155 physical therapy sessions and 40 work conditioning sessions, he wrote. He’s back at his job now, but thanks to the law, he can beg off working overtime when his foot starts to feel like it’s going to explode in his shoe.

Chenlikas’ message to Washington: “Please don’t allow this valuable program to be changed.”

Vicki Spaulding, a human resources administrator at a packaging factory in Middletown, Ohio, has equally strong opinions about the Family and Medical Leave Act.

"The FMLA regulations have created a nightmare for our company," she wrote to the Bush administration, explaining that several workers at the factory have used the law to take time off intermittently.

She, too, concluded with a plea: "Please, please change the FMLA regulations."

FULL article at link.

[gaspee]

1. gee

I wonder which side the administration will come down on...

[MountainLaurel]

2. No question about that.

:cry: