The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) offers some workers with up to twelve weeks of unpaid, job-safeguarded leave every year. It also necessitates that their group medical benefits be upheld in the course of the leave. It is planned to enable workers to balance their workplace and family duties by assisting them to undertake reasonable leave for numerous reasons (U.S. Department of Labor, n.d.). The FMLA endeavors to uphold the genuine concerns of workers and encourage equal employment opportunities for both women and men.
The FMLA is not fair for all employees who have a medical condition since it does not cover every worker but has enlisted discriminatory conditions. It is applicable to all public agencies and both private and public companies and learning institutions if they have at least 50 workers (U.S. Department of Labor, n.d.). Some of the reasons encompassed in the Act are birth and nurturance of a newborn baby, placement of a baby for foster care or adoption, looking after a close family member who has a severe medical condition, or inability of an employee to work attributable to serious health issues. The unfairness of the FMLA is anchored in its failure to consider employees working in organizations that have less than 50 employees (Lee et al., 2018). Moreover, it embraces interests that are more inclined to women than men, which is tantamount to discrimination against male employees.
The US should make the FMLA more unbiased for all employees by expanding its coverage to workers in all organizations, with the inclusion of the ones that have less than 50 members of staff. Moreover, unlike the present condition, the government should make FMLA eligible even for employees who have worked for less than 12 months (Lee et al., 2018). The US should also extend the reasons covered by the Act to include interests that favor both male and female employees since the current situation make women more expensive to hire than men, which could make some employers discriminate against females in the hiring progression.
References
Lee, K. S., Read, D. W., & Markham, C. (2018). The case for extending coverage of the Family and Medical Leave Act to include a period of time following the death of a family member for whom leave was taken. Southern Law Journal, 28(1), 27-45.
U.S. Department of Labor. (n.d.). Family and Medical Leave (FMLA). Web.