Family And Medical

Q. I work for a large corporation. The words "business needs" and "mandatory overtime" are frequently used. We are expected to work 10 hours of mandatory overtime unless we have a doctor's note or approval for time off under the Family and Medical Leave Act. Our supervisor says that if we refuse to work overtime without an acceptable excuse, then the time we didn't work will be counted against any future FMLA leave. No one in the office remembers being told this until she informed us recently.

The Maryland State Police paramedic who won a sex discrimination lawsuit against his agency for being denied paternity leave has been allowed to return to work -- but only for administrative duties.Trooper 1st Class H. Kevin Knussman went back to work with his full police powers Tuesday for the first time since winning a $375,000 jury verdict two weeks ago.State police officials, however, still insist that he submit to a psychiatric evaluation before being allowed to resume his job as a paramedic with the medical evacuation helicopter unit.

We are a company of about 30 people. One of our employees is on maternity leave. When she returns, do we have to reinstate her to the job she held before the leave? The answer is crucial because her replacement does a much better job, and we would like to keep her in the position. Can't we just offer the returning employee a job in another department? Because of your company's size, your question doesn't have easy answers. You're too small to fall under the jurisdiction of the federal Family and Medical Leave Act, which covers companies with at least 50 employees.

A federal judge in Baltimore awarded $40,000 yesterday to a former Maryland State Police trooper who was denied extended parental leave because he is a man, substantially reducing the $375,000 a jury had said the veteran officer was owed. However, U.S. District Judge Walter E. Black Jr. let stand fees and expenses totaling more than $626,000 for the attorneys who represented H. Kevin Knussman, rejecting arguments by a state police lawyer that the amount was excessive and unsubstantiated.

Washington. -- In his first radio address from the Oval Office, President Clinton said that ''for the last 12 years our leaders haven't completely leveled with us.'' Make that 13.Mr. Clinton and his team, who used the transition to repudiate or blur campaign promises, have used their first weeks in power to slide away from the most important pledge made during the transition.In his confirmation hearing as director of the Office of Management and Budget, Leon Panetta endorsed a deficit reduction ratio of two-thirds spending cuts to one-third tax increases.

WASHINGTON - In his 15 years on the federal appeals court in Philadelphia, Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. has provided just a few direct statements on the intense legal debate over how power should be shared between the federal government and the states. To some scholars, those occasions have been revealing and significant, and suggest that if confirmed to the Supreme Court, Alito might be an aggressive leader in expanding state authority at the expense of the federal government. In 1996, Alito voted to strike down a recently enacted federal law that limited the possession of machine guns, in the case of United States v. Rybar.

THE UNITED STATES does not have a proud history with respect to family leave policy. On the eve of World War II, it was one of only three industrialized countries that had not adopted any policy to address the needs of working families. It took four decades before the first family leave bill was introduced in the House of Representatives by Colorado Democrat Patricia Schroeder and another eight years before it passed and was signed into law by President Clinton in 1993. Between 1985 and 1993, about 27 states had adopted some version of a leave policy.

Summer's here, and for most American children, school's out. But it's still appropriate to administer a painless little diagnostic quiz. Here goes: 1. When I contemplate the prospect of a 10-week school vacation, I feel: A. Joy. B. Panic. If you answered "A," chances are that you're a little kid. Give yourself 10 points for precocity (you're reading the newspaper!) and another 10 just for being a little kid. If you answered "B," you're probably a parent. Deduct 10 points. If that strikes you as unfair, you're right, but if you're a parent, you really ought to be used to unfairness by now. For parents, lengthy school "vacations" are no kind of vacation at all. That tenuous stability achieved during the rest of the year - when, barring the usual illnesses and "weather events," you had child care for the better part of each day - is gone, gone, gone.

BOSTON -- I think of it as being "mommified." After all, the word has such a nice, fusty, Egyptian-tomb sound.This is how it happens. You leave work to have a baby and come back to discover that you've been transformed from a fast-track employee to a mommy. The assumptions have changed, the boss looks at you differently, your career future is suddenly as petrified as the Pharaoh.Or maybe you're a mother being interviewed for a new job. The questions turn, discreetly of course, to child care or your willingness to travel.

Andy Harris, the only Maryland Republican serving in Congress, voted against reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act last week, but he didn't call and tell me that. Word of Harris' vote came from the Democratic Party — specifically, a news release from state chair Yvette Lewis, who blasted the 1st District congressman for his nay on the VAWA: "Today, by voting against the Violence Against Women Act, Congressman Andy Harris decided to continue his trend of voting against bipartisan legislation that would help people in the First District and Maryland.  "Eighty-seven House Republicans voted for this legislation, which is a reauthorization of vital support for organizations that serve victims of domestic violence.