As cold and flu season begins to kick in, the Management Association of Illinois is getting the sweats and chills.
The germ that is spawning its anxiety is an opinion letter from the U.S. Department of Labor that seems to indicate employers may be obliged, in some cases, to give medical leaves to workers whose colds, flus or earaches drag on more than three days.
Under the Family and Medical Leave Act, employers with 50 or more employees must grant unpaid leaves of up to 12 weeks a year when an employee or an employee’s family member has a “serious health condition.”
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The Labor Department’s opinion letter attempts to clarify what constitutes a “serious health condition.”
It states, “yes, the cold or flu may be a serious health condition for FMLA purposes, if the individual is incapacitated for more than three consecutive calendar days and receives continuing treatment by a health-care provider.”
Pass the aspirin, says the Management Association of Illinois.
“The expanded list of covered illnesses goes beyond the law’s original intent,” said Lisa R. Callaway, labor/employment counsel for the association, which represents 900 small and medium-sized employers. “Expanding the definition will increase the frequency of FMLA leave and add to the workflow interruption and paperwork.”
Doubtful, says John Fraser, acting administrator for the Wage and Hour Division of the Labor Department. “In the vast majority of cases, people with colds or flu will stay home, in bed, drinking juices, and these are not typically serious health conditions.”
The opinion attempts to address unusual cases in which common ailments turn into serious conditions, he said.
Divine intervention? Can religious leaders move parties in a 10-year-old labor dispute, when years of haggling and confrontation have failed?
The new Chicago Workers’ Rights Board, a panel of prominent religious and community leaders, will give it a try Thursday at its first-ever hearing.
Workers at Northbrook-based Acme Die Casting will testify about their 10-year fight for a contract, an as-yet-unsuccessful struggle that has included three strikes. The company employs 120 workers, primarily Latinos, who have voted to be represented by the United Electrical Workers Union.
The panel, a joint project of the Chicago Interfaith Committee on Worker Issues, the Chicago Federation of Labor and Chicago Jobs for Justice, had not heard whether the company would accept an invitation to participate, a spokeswoman said Tuesday.
“The legal system has tied up this dispute for far too many years,” said Rev. Martha Scott, chairwoman of the new board and a professor at the Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston. “My colleagues and I . . . aim to resolve this conflict quickly.”
Her colleagues on the board include Dr. Ghulam-Haider Aasi, director of the American Islamic College; Rabbi Vernon Kurtz, president of the Council of Religious Leaders, and Bishop Timothy Lyne of Holy Name Cathedral.
Acme Die Casting, an aluminum and zinc foundry, is a unit of Oak Brook-based Lovejoy Industries Inc., a privately held firm. Company officials did not respond to requests for comment.
Heart smart: William Milroy, a medical director for Caterpillar Inc., recently bought some new “umbrellas” that he hopes the company will never need to use. Caterpillar is among a growing number of companies to purchase a new generation of defibrillators in an effort to improve response time should a worker suffer cardiac arrest. The defibrillators deliver a shock to the heart.
“I think of it as an umbrella on a sunny day, which is used as a magic charm to keep the rain from coming,” said Milroy, medical director for Track Type Tractors Division in East Peoria, which has more than 5,000 workers.
The division bought six of the portable, automated external defibrillators, one for each major building in the division. The cost for the best of such machines, Milroy said, is $3,000 to $4,000 apiece.