Family Leave

CHICAGO -- A child's fear, a parent's worry and even a nation's concern about rising health care costs have been eased by the Family Medical Leave Act, according to a Columbia family who needed it last year.Michael and Conswella Bachelor say their daughter Rasheda would have been hospitalized longer -- and her recovery compromised -- without the support provided by the law.They told their story to the nation last night via videotape played during the Democratic National Convention.Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski introduced them during a tribute to "the moms and dads who -- every day -- are America's unsung heroes."

Heliodoro Bravo worked so hard for so long that, when he dropped dead two weeks ago at age 39, what his wife did made sense to their friends: she kept the family restaurant open and kept working.No time off for a funeral. Only a few scattered hours to mourn. She says she could not even spare the days or money to accompany his body to Mexico, where her husband's parents had a service and burial. "We have always had to go forward, to support the family," says Filomena Bravo, 41. "We always work and work, because we have to pay the bills.

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.

More than 50 families will be forced to move out of the Lexington Terrace housing complex next week after vandals destroyed a 300,000-volt transformer that left them without electricity.Yesterday, the power problems at the housing development were exacerbated when repair crews ruptured a water main, killing electricity at an adjacent high-rise and shorting out the mobile generators brought in to replace the vandalized XTC transformer.The families, already scheduled to vacate the development because of its planned demolition in July, were left without electricity Monday night when vandals, apparently looking for copper, destroyed the transformer outside the 770 W. Saratoga St. high-rise.

Workers used to worry that if they took time off for family or medical reasons, they would get fired. Now a federal law guarantees that you can be out for up to 12 weeks per year in certain cases and still have a job. Unfortunately, it isn't always that easy.Many businesses don't like the Family and Medical Leave Act. While it's illegal for them to punish you for taking leave, companies have found legal ways to, in effect, do just that.In a nutshell, the law protects most people who work for a company with 50 or more employees and have clocked at least 1,250 hours during the past year.

TWO FORMER home businesses have moved into the fast lane -- opening an office on Main Street in Hampstead. On Friday from noon to 8 p.m. and on Saturday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., they're opening their door to show the public what they can do.Eagle Embroidery, co-owned by Chris and Cathy Cavey and Kym and David Cavey, took root four years ago in the family basement.J&K Graphics, owned by John and Kathy Rampolla, started about 12 months ago.The two businesses have moved to joint quarters at 838D S. Main St., between Dean's Restaurant and Pearson Signs.

Another little piece of Baltimore will die this week when American Joe's Bar closes.Oh, the doors of the corner tavern will open again -- as Harry's American Bar -- but it won't be the same.The Canton landmark -- a family-owned business on the Northeast corner of South Luzerne and Foster Avenues -- will fade into the history of this city Friday, going the way of the shipyards, manufacturers and canneries that once fueled the economy of Southeast Baltimore.In this case, the owners, Frank and Frances Miedusiewski, are retiring after spending the past 47 years running the tavern that was founded as a malt and hops bar in 1923, during Prohibition.

A veteran state trooper sued the Maryland State Police yesterday over a policy that he says denies family leave benefits for fathers solely because of their gender.The suit, filed by Tfc. Kevin Knussman and the American Civil Liberties Union in U.S. District Court in Baltimore, says the agency refused to grant the trooper the leave he was entitled to under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act, and under state law.The federal law guarantees employees 12 weeks of earned leave upon the birth of a child.

When Philip Stern took three months off from work after the birth of his first child, he wasn't sure his job would still be there when he returned to the Eastman Kodak Co. in Rochester, N.Y. Two years later, Mr. Stern's second baby is due imminently and he plans to take another leave. But this time he won't have to depend on Kodak's kindness -- federal law guarantees he can return to the same job (as a product engineer), or to an equivalent position.Mr. Stern is among the growing number of people who are benefiting from a 15-month-old federal law called the Family and Medical Leave Act. It says that employees at many companies have the right to take up to 12 weeks per year off from work for health emergencies or the arrival of a child.

My wife and I were out with another couple recently, and we were talking about ethnicity. We realized that if our friends had a daughter (half Jewish-half Irish) and we had a son (half Italian-half Jewish) who married, our grandchildren would be a mish-mash of cultures, practically deracinated and stripped of any real heritage.That may be true, I said, thumping my chest, but they would have my name. What that name might be worth, in the face of eroding European ethnic identity, is precisely what Bill Tonelli sets out to discover in his sociological picaresque, "The Amazing Story of the Tonelli Family in America."