Recently, I was presented with a concern of an employee that wanted to take maternity leave from work as afforded to her by the Federal Medical Leave Act. Having some familiarity with the act, I was about to point out to her that the FMLA only applied to those companies with 50 employees or more. As our company employs only 40 employees in a private firm, I told her that I would of course look into her request and get back to her the next day. I am very glad I did.
The Federal Medical Leave Act does indeed apply to employers with 50 or more employees. (For further information on the FMLA CLICK HERE.) Had I just left the matter at that, I would have made a grave error and would have created an unfortunate problem for my company and our employee. What I discovered was that my state also has a medical leave act called the Oregon Medical Leave Act. If I had not taken the time to really look into the issue and not just work from one source I would have made a costly mistake.
In a past issue of “Hot Tips!” I mentioned the importance of visiting your state website and encouraged our readers to really take the time to stay up to date on the issues relevant to managing employees. Since we are a management resource for the health care filed, I felt it important to take this a step further for anyone reading this. I therefore did some further research and can now give you the exact website that you can go to find your states labor department. From reading through the site you can find the relevant laws and rules that will apply to a variety of employee situations and decisions you often make, similar to the example I gave above.
Below you will find, listed by state all of the sites in one easy to use location.
- Alabama
- Alaska
- Arizona
- Arkansas
- California
- Colorado
- Connecticut
- Delaware
- District of Columbia
- Florida
- Georgia
- Hawaii
- Idaho
- Illinois
- Indiana
- Iowa
- Kansas
- Kentucky
- Louisiana
- Maine
- Maryland
- Massachusetts
- Michigan
- Minnesota
- Mississippi
- Missouri
- Montana
- Nebraska
- Nevada
- New Hampshire
- New Jersey
- New Mexico
- New York
- North Carolina
- North Dakota
- Ohio
- Oklahoma
- Oregon
- Pennsylvania
- Rhode Island
- South Carolina
- South Dakota
- Tennessee
- Texas
- Utah
- Vermont
- Virginia
- Washington
- West Virginia
- Wisconsin
- Wyoming
I hope you find your state’s web site just as valuable and informative as I have in Oregon. As always, if you have a specific concern with a legal problem, or if you have a specific legal question, always consult a licensed and board certified attorney in your state.
Ken DeRouchie
Managing Editor
The Practice Solution Magazine
Published by Silkin
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