State the benefits and problems of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). What steps have been taken by the government of California to address these problems?

What will be an ideal response?

The FMLA has now established a norm that employees do not have to risk job loss because of a leave necessitated by a short-term health crisis or the new obligations imposed by giving birth to a child. It has also demonstrated that early fears of the burden on employers of implementing the act were grossly exaggerated, as employers now report that they are administering the act with little cost or trouble. However, the FMLA does not meet the standards of other industrialized nations. Nearly 40 percent of American employees are not covered by the act because either their employers do not employ 50 or more persons, or employees do not work enough hours in a week to be covered. The U.S. Department of Labor also released a survey in 2013 showing that the law has had a positive effect on working families without imposing an undue burden on employers. The study shows that employers generally find it easy to comply with the law, and misuse of the FMLA by workers is rare. The vast majority of employers, 91 percent, report that complying with the FMLA has either no noticeable effect or a positive effect on business operations such as employee absenteeism, turnover, and morale. Finally, the survey revealed that 90 percent of workers return to their employer after FMLA leave, showing little risk to businesses that investment in a worker will be lost as a result of leave granted under the act. The unpaid nature of the leave, however, is still seen as problematic by some. Many of those eligible for leave cannot afford to take it. A 2000 survey administered by the Department of Labor showed that 3.5 million employees needed FMLA leave but did not take it, and their primary reason for not taking it was that they could not afford to do so. Ninety percent of those said that they would have taken leave if some of it had been paid. A third problem seems to be that while one part of the impetus for the act was to get men more involved in parenting, very few men take advantage of the act for the birth or adoption of a child, and when they do, they typically take less than a week of time. Despite these imperfections with the FMLA, it does not seem as if any changes will be coming in the near future. There have been a number of attempts to amend the legislation and make it applicable to firms with 25 or more employees, but all such attempts have failed to garner enough votes. A few states, however, have chosen to expand coverage. For example, California's SDI program provides a partial replacement wage for workers who have a non-work-related illness, injury, or medically disabling condition, including disability resulting from childbirth or pregnancy. California law also makes it illegal for an employer to refuse to grant an employee's request to transfer to a less strenuous or less hazardous job during pregnancy as long as the request can be reasonably accommodated. California's law also extends parental and family leave rights to workers caring for a domestic partner or child of a domestic partner.