Leave Act Leaves Employers Grasping

Labor Department interpretations of the Family and Medical Leave Act, passed five years ago, have created difficulties for private employers. The law was supposed to help workers if they or family members suffered from a serious illness that required extended time off from work. The leave was supposed to be unpaid.

• In 1996, Labor issued guidelines that said the act did not cover colds, the flu and non-migraine headaches -- but later reversed position and said these conditions may indeed qualify.

• Employers have been tied in legal knots by court decisions such as the one that gave a woman the right to unpaid leave for an ingrown toenail.

• Officials of Hallmark Cards, for example, reported that 23 percent of its 8,500 eligible workers used family leave in 1996 -- with workers receiving pay for 80 percent of the hours taken.

• A recent study found that co-workers had to assume the duties and responsibilities of leave-taking workers 92 percent of the time.

Despite such burdens on businesses and other workers, supporters of the act want to expand it from covering workplaces with more than 50 workers to those with more than 25.