Family Leave

Once again, Congress is considering a family-leave proposal that would substitute government Diktat for good private business practice.The public policy question is not whether employee benefits packages with options for unpaid leave for the birth or adoption of a child or for the serious illness of an immediate family member are desirable. We think they are. The public policy question is whether such benefits should be required by government mandate. We think not.The Senate is voting this week on a leave measure that fails to measure up to the compassionate rhetoric of its sponsors.

State Del. Joseph J. "Sonny" Minnick and his family have quit the tavern business after 20 years, selling their liquor license shortly before the lawmaker's brother faces trial on gambling charges in connection with video machine payouts at the Dundalk establishment. Records show that the Minnick's Restaurant liquor license was transferred last month to new owners, two of whom also have Baltimore County political connections and own another Dundalk restaurant. The Democratic delegate's older brother, Daniel Minnick, 86, faces six charges in a case scheduled for trial Monday in Baltimore County District Court.

Boston -- Some things take longer than others. This time, it took eight years to get 12 weeks.After all the seasons of wrangling and rewriting, voting and vetoing, the Family and Medical Leave Act is finally, actually and belatedly going to become law. You may share this news with any children conceived the same year as this bill -- 1985 -- before they head off to their third-grade class.American workers may be about the last in the industrialized world to get family leave, but we're going to get it. Or at least many of us are.The bill mandates up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave for workers to care for a newborn or adopted child, or a critically ill family member . . . if.If they work for companies with 50 or more employees.

Under pressure from state regulators, Baltimore Behavioral Health Inc. has shaken up its corporate structure by taking away the voting rights of six family members who have long sat on the nonprofit mental health clinic's eight-seat board of directors. The board will now have just four voting members, led by Towson lawyer John E. Sibrea as its new president, and two other newcomers. Only Terry T. Brown, a longtime BBH vice president, will retain his voting seat. Two stalwarts of the organization will stay on the board in a nonvoting capacity: Morris A. Hill, who founded BBH in 1997, and his stepson, William "Kris" Hathaway, the nonprofit's chief executive.

WASHINGTON -- Renewing their challenge to President Bush, Senate Democrats resurrected yesterday a bill granting 12 weeks of unpaid leave to workers with family emergencies -- a measure Mr. Bush vetoed last year.The bill has become a prime symbol of the Democrats' differences with the Republican White House and is part of a package of domestic issues Democratic candidates intend to feature in national elections next year.Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, D-Conn., author of the bill, said yesterday that he had detected a slight softening of Republican resistance to the measure and that he held out hope Mr. Bush would reconsider his opposition.

ANNAPOLIS -- Presenting their case to a Senate Finance Committee that has killed similar legislation, proponents of mandatory extended leave touted yesterday a more moderate family-leave bill along the same lines as one approved by Congress.Calling it "one of the most important bills to come before the Legislature this session," Sen. Idamae Garrott, D-Montgomery, the primary sponsor of Senate Bill 124, said the legislation "will bring the realities of the workplace into the reality of how families live now."

THE Family and Medical Leave Act, which may have been vetoed by President Bush by the time you read this, would increase discrimination against women by employers.The legislation would force companies with 50 or more employees to grant up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to female employees for having a child, and to male or female employees to care for a sick child, spouse or parent.Businesses would have to retain the employee's health-care benefits over that period and guarantee that he or she would be able to come back to the same or a comparable job at the end of 12 weeks.

Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett opened his Carroll office in Westminster Friday and told residents he opposes family leave and gays in the military.The freshman Republican from Frederick said his experience in Washington has been "very interesting" so far, but, "It would be more rewarding if we could be of more help to Americans."About 30 people, including about half a dozen Republicanpoliticians,attended the opening of Mr. Bartlett's office in Suite 110 of the Winchester Exchange building at 15 E. Main St.Mr.

THE BALTIMORE federal court verdict affirming a state trooper's right to take family leave sends a strong message to employers.Despite a 1993 federal law requiring employers to give men and women up to 12 weeks unpaid leave for the birth of a child or for family medical reasons, the Maryland State Police insisted on their own 10-day parental leave policy for Tfc. Howard Kevin Knussman. The officer, who was denied extended leave in 1994, was awarded $375,000 damages by a jury last week.Men have struggled against workplace bias that discourages their use of parental leave.

WASHINGTON -- President Bush, whose re-election campaign is apparently losing ground with moderates, signaled his distress yesterday by offering for the first time to compromise on legislation that would mandate family leave benefits.In an apparent bid to control political damage from his promised veto of a congressional family leave bill, Mr. Bush offered $500 million in tax incentives to encourage small businesses to voluntarily grant their workers unpaid time off for family emergencies.

Three members of the Morrison family are each making their marks at Anne Arundel County schools. Patrick Morrison, a senior at Severna Park, was a four-year varsity starter in football at quarterback and defensive back who has signed with Wagner. The All-County and second-team All-Metro player is also a starting midfielder on the lacrosse team. He has two sisters excelling in lacrosse at their respective schools in junior Bridgett Morrison of St. Mary's and freshman Maggie Morrison of Archbishop Spalding.

Federal regulators have proposed relatively minor changes to the popular Family and Medical Leave Act, a relief for advocates who had feared a sweeping rewrite that would have made it difficult for people to take advantage of it. The proposals, released this month by the Department of Labor, would give employers more leeway in verifying that people taking medical leave are sick. The proposals would impose other restrictions that business groups said might curb what they see as a major problem: employees who leave their bosses short-handed on short notice.

The group began in 1931 with the case of Euel Lee, an African-American man accused of murder on the Eastern Shore, threatened with lynching and denied counsel. His predicament alarmed several Marylanders, who had heard of a national civil lib? erties organization that had been established 11 years earlier to address civil injustices. Led by Elisabeth Gilman, the daughter of the Johns Hopkins University?s first president, the group es? tablished a Maryland chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

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.

I read your recent column about a woman who wanted to take time off from work after adopting an infant. I am a man who is planning to adopt, and I am wondering if I am entitled to a leave. Your gender doesn't matter. The federal Family and Medical Leave Act, the primary law regarding employees' time off after the birth or adoption of a child, doesn't focus on an employee's gender. "An eligible male employee is entitled to FMLA leave where a son or daughter is placed with that employee for adoption or foster care," said Jeffrey Naness of Naness, Chaiet & Naness in Jericho, N.Y. However, as a previous column mentioned, other criteria apply for the unpaid leave.

OCEAN CITY - The way 24-year-old Anna Dolle sees it, she and her brother Andrew, 21, must have inherited some kind of Boardwalk gene - "a predisposition to candy making and working weird hours." Oh, they both went off to college. Anna earned an anthropology degree at American University, then worked for the Smithsonian Institution. Andrew tried the academic life for a couple of semesters at nearby Salisbury University. But it was inevitable, they believe, that the pair headed back to the same corner at Wicomico Avenue and the beach where the Dolle family has been concocting saltwater taffy, caramel corn and other treats since 1910.

WASHINGTON -- Challenging President Bush to support family values on the eve of the Republican convention, the Senate yesterday approved a bill that would require employers to grant unpaid leave for childbirth and family emergencies.Mr. Bush vetoed an earlier version of the bill, insisting that government should not dictate to employers. But family-leave backers hope election-year pressures will force him to change his mind on a popular issue.Mr. Bush's "failure to support this is failure to reinforce what is a very important part of his platform," said Sen. Christopher S. Bond, R-Mo.

WASHINGTON -- Since its enactment three years ago, the Family and Medical Leave Act has allowed employees leave to care for a newborn, a sick relative or for their own serious illnesses without placing a heavy burden on employers, according to a report released to Congress yesterday by a bipartisan commission.The law, which guarantees up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave, had come under fire before its passage from some businesses that said it amounted to an unneeded government intrusion that would cost them dearly in time and money.

WASHINGTON - Forcefully rejecting stereotypes about the roles of men and women as caregivers, the Supreme Court refused yesterday to exempt states from a federal law that authorizes employees to sue for back pay if they are denied a leave of absence to care for a sick family member. In an opinion by Chief Justice William Rehnquist, the court turned away arguments by Nevada officials that states were immune from lawsuits by employees under the Family and Medical Leave Act. The court said that the law was passed to address historic gender bias in granting leave for family emergencies and that Congress' strong interest in addressing sex discrimination trumps any states' rights concerns.

WASHINGTON - A divided U.S. Supreme Court struck down yesterday a federal rule that penalized employers for failing to inform workers of their rights under the Family and Medical Leave Act. The Labor Department rule was aimed at employers who don't tell workers on leave that the time will count against the 12 weeks of guaranteed leave under federal law. The rule gave those employees an additional 12 weeks off. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing for...