In one of the Bush administration’s final regulatory acts, the U.S. Department of Labor has issued 762 pages of revisions to the Family and Medical Leave Act. The changes have been two years in the making and not unexpectedly are more favorable to employers than employees. Family advocacy groups are pretty unhappy with the new regulations. But that doesn’t mean that the FMLA will ever be easy to apply in your workplace.

If you don’t know the basics of FMLA, it entitles employees to take 12 weeks unpaid leave to deal with the birth or adoption of a child, the employee’s serious health condition, a family member’s serious health condition, or a parent, child or spouse’s military deployments, including 26 weeks if a military family member is wounded. FMLA protects the employee’s health care benefits while on leave. Once the employee has used up his twelve weeks, you must return him to his old position or an equivalent position with the same benefits, compensation and status.

By the way, if you have less than 50 employees (full- or part-time), you can stop reading right now. FMLA only applies to companies that are larger than yours.

For those of you who have more than 50 names on your payroll, here are a few of the numerous changes you must understand by the time the new FMLA regulations go into effect on January 16, 2009: Continue reading FMLA Revisions →