Why Fmla Was Enacted?Why Fmla Was Enacted?In todays working society, families are faced with conflicts between both their work and family responsibilities. While people are at work, employees must find suitable and reliable arrangements for their children or their elderly parents. It is difficult to be able to take time off even when the employee themselves are ill. The Family and Medical Leave Act provides employees the opportunity to take time to care for their family.
Though the Act was signed into action in 1993, there has been a long history of unfair labor practices concerning family and/or medical leave since the early 1900s. Although not common knowledge, family medical leave has been an issue in this country for the past 100 years. The most significant recent development regarding this issue is The Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA). Because there is an immense amount of information on Family Medical Leave, this paper will be focusing on the enactment of The Family Medical Leave Act.
Early 1900sThe burgeoning industrial revolution at the turn of the 20th century made it inevitable that women would join the work force. But, there were no laws enacted which specifically target protection of women in the workforce. In fact, labor was cheap and management exploitive. Laborers were being forced to work long hours without additional compensation. This time saw significant strides in womens rights. Women were striving for suffrage and equal recognition under the law. It was accomplished through petitions, going through the courts, rallies, public debates, and picketing. Although effective, working conditions for women were not equivalent to those of men. It was not until the creation of labor unions and the eventual inclusion of women into these unions that there is advancement in the working conditions for women.
Muller v. Oregon 1908From my research I found that Muller v Oregon was one of the first cases in which womens working conditions were argued. In September 1905, an employee of Grand Laundry in Portland Oregon, Emma Gotcher was required by her employer to work overtime. By requiring her to work over time, Grand Laundry had violated Oregons ten hour law. The law stated that it was illegal to make women work for more than ten hours a day. Two weeks later, the state of Oregon filed criminal charges against the owner of the laundry shop, Curt Muller. Muller hired a lawyer, and lost his case in the circuit court. He argued that the Oregon law violated his right to contract freely with his workers. Muller appealed to the Oregon Supreme Court and lost yet again.
The state of Oregon hired a very gifted lawyer, Louis Brandies, who graduated from Harvard Law School in 1875. Brandies had gathered a group of people to gather facts on the impact of working hours for women. He concluded that overwork is more disastrous to the health of women than of men, mainly because of womens “special physical organization.” He also stated that an overlong work day also affected childbirth and female functions. He said that when hours were reduced there was “extraordinary improvement in physique and morals.” “It gave young unmarried working-women the opportunity to learn the art of homemaking, upon which health, welfare, and property of her whole family will depend.” (Supreme Court Collection) In short, the state legislature had acted reasonably in limiting womens hours.
Mullers lawyers argued that both women and men alike were entitled to equal protection of the laws. The lawyers said that women were persons and citizens and they were competent to contract without reference to their labor as are men. On February 28, 1908, Associate Justice David Brewer agreed that womens overwork injured the general welfare. He shared his own views by stating that the most important part of the legislation protected women by limiting by contractual powers and this wasnt imposed solely for her benefit, but also largely for the benefits of all. Muller was fined ten dollars.
World War IIDue to the war, the number of women in the workforce increased dramatically. Thus, family leave became an important issue with the increasing amount of women in the workforce. This arose during World War II because many women had to enter the workforce to support their families while their husbands were abroad. Up to this time, there were no legislations on family leave. However, a strong push for legislation did not begin until the late 1970s and 1980s. (Hayes, 2001). The first piece of legislation of this sort was the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, which passed in 1978. The Pregnancy Discrimination Act required employers to provide pregnancy disability leave to women if employers also
tend to discriminate on the basis of gender. The act’s effect on the job market, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, totaled $3.6 billion between 1980 and 2010, about $6.9 billion of which was not paid through pay raises. An article in The New York Times (January 24, 1986) mentions this as of late (the date is also listed as early 1985 and before).”
When the Pregnancy Discrimination Act was first passed in 1978, an increase in the hours worked was a major consideration for both employers and workers, though it may have become less common. However, there is no evidence the increase in the hours worked in the post-1978 period was due to a lack of legislation, especially in the early 1980s. In 1985, an article in The New York Times states, “When the Pregnancy Discrimination Act was first passed in 1978, an increase in the hours worked was a major consideration for both employers and workers, though it may have been less common.” The time spent in the late night between 8:00 p.m. (Eastern) and 4:00 a.m. was considered to be more important and thus is called the “dinner period” by employers.
The following table summarizes a few of the differences between 1980 and 2010 when in effect an effective amount of paid family leave was enacted.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that during the period 1981–2011, employees worked 35 percent less hours than the comparable period in 1978, but only 8 percent less frequently. This was due to an increase in hours worked compared to the period 1978 and 1981, in turn increasing the percentage of worked more than the period in 1984. (Worth noting: The figure above indicates that after 1980 in the 1980s the number of working hours worked averaged just 6.2 percent less.)
Scheduling
Employers did the most to limit scheduling in 1981, when the “workday” time was limited by a regulation called the “night shift,” which was supposed to eliminate the ability for women to take part in the company or get time off. The regulation would not affect most workers, but other provisions, such as minimum wage, could.
To compensate for the lack of new law, the government mandated that minimum wage workers spend at least 5 percent fewer hours per month on their work and would therefore have to work more than 40 hours per week to maintain their jobs. (That may not seem like much of an issue in comparison to the hours worked in 1979-’80 (in addition to overtime work, those who were not allowed to work more than 40 hours a week would be required to work over 40 hours of overtime, if the law passed. ) In the first 5 years after the law passed, employers paid the average