Is the Healthy Families Act Really Healthy for Your Family?
For those of you who do not know it, if you work for a company who employs more than 50 people, you may be eligible to get up to twelve weeks of leave a year (unpaid, that is) if you or a member of your immediate family is seriously ill or after a child is born or adopted. After that leave of absence, your employer is required to reinstate you without discipline. This is according to the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). Furthermore, the Healthy Families Act (HFA) would require your employer to give you at least seven full days of paid leave in these cases.
HFA sounds good in theory, but in many ways, it does not give full-time employees in the U.S. that much more in the way of benefits or support from their companies. Most full-time employees in the United States already have a paid leave available to them in case that they get seriously ill. Furthermore, HFA doesn’t necessarily have a positive effect on workers’ total compensation benefits. Why? When these mandates are decked out by Congress, employers often respond by reducing employees’ cash wages. In short, mandatory sick leaves often equal forcing you to take more of your compensation as time off instead of as cash pay—whether you like it or not.
In addition, when mandates like this pass and then need to be enforced, it is inevitable that capitalism will strike back. Under the HFA, irresponsible employees aiming to work the system could transfer their duties onto coworkers with the luxury of keeping full pay.
What would happen in the workplace when an employee takes off without advanced notice under these circumstances? Even if employers can find a replacement worker on short notice, they may not hire one and instead assign extra tasks to coworkers. This creates strain on fellow employees or tasks may simply go undone. As a consequence, this impairs the company as a whole and in effect, shorts the customer.
In an ideal world, the aspect of the Healthy Families Act makes sense. However, like so many laws, it is good in theory but poses complex issues for employers, employees and the public at large in the real world.
Monheit is the managing lawyer at Monheit Law, outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He has practiced law since 1989. Michael Monheit was the managing attorney of the law offices of Herbert Monheit — now Silverman and Fodera — a firm founded by... Michael Monheit→
