The U.S. Department of Labor announced that it is issuing a notice of proposed
rulemaking to implement new amendments to the Family and Medical
Leave Act that would expand leave provisions for military caregivers and create eligibility provisions unique to airline flight crews. The DOL's news release is available here.
With respect to military caregiver leave, the current law covers only family members of service members who are "currently serving." The DOL's proposed new rules would extend military caregiver leave to family members of veterans for up to five years after the veteran leaves the military. Additionally, the DOL's proposed new rules expand an employer's obligation to grant FMLA leave to military caregiver by requiring employers to provide "qualifying exigency" leave to employees whose family members serve in the armed forces on a full time basis. Currently, the law applies only to families of National Guard members and reservists.
For airline flight crew employees, the DOL's proposed rules expand the situations in which an employer must grant leave. The rules would create a special hours of service eligibility requirement for flight crews and specific provisions for calculating the amount of FMLA leave used by flight crew members.
