Relief In Sight? DOL Issues Final FMLA Regulations

More than 15 years after the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) was signed into law, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) chose to evaluate and revise regulations that it had promulgated in 1995 during President Clinton's Administration. For much of that period, employers and their Washington, D.C. representatives pressed the case that substantial burdens had been added to the process of leave administration under the FMLA by the DOL rules. Almost from the day that Republican President George W. Bush came into office in 2001, employer hopes grew that some of the more challenging aspects of the DOL regulations would be revised in a manner that would relieve those obligations and constraints. More than seven years later, the Bush Administration proposed revised FMLA rules that promised to provide a variety of changes, while leaving relatively untouched several problematic aspects of the agency's regulations (such as the sometimes difficult challenges posed by the use of