FMLA -- Headquarter & Remote Employees

[Bcompliance2003]

If a client has 49 employees within a 75 mile radius of their HQ and 11 employees beyond 75 does, does FMLA still apply? 

[Peter Gulia]

Many commenters in these website discussions are confident in their knowledge about how the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 and the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 govern or affect retirement plans or, for fewer, health and other welfare-benefit plans. Fewer would claim expertise about laws that more generally govern other aspects of an employment relationship. (And I have no knowledge of employment laws more than general awareness.)

The United States’ Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 is complex, even for points about which employers might be covered and which employees might become entitled to a leave.

Among other points, there are differences between whether the Act governs an employer, and whether its employee has a right to FMLA leave. The Act can govern an employer, even if none of its employees could become entitled to FMLA leave.

A regulation interprets what is a worksite (not only a principal office or other headquarters) and how to measure who is “within 75 miles of [her] worksite[.]” 29 U.S.C. § 2611. And the 75-mile radius is not “as the crow flies” or as simply drawn on a map.

29 C.F.R. § 825.111 https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-29/subtitle-B/chapter-V/subchapter-C/part-825/subpart-A/section-825.111.

The Federal law does not supersede or preempt “any State or local law that provides greater family or medical leave rights[.]” 29 U.S.C. § 2651. Many States’ and cities’ laws provide more.

If your client, whether as an employer or as an employee-benefit plan’s administrator, needs answers, it might want more help than you’re likely to find as general information here.