In mid-December, Congress approved legislation that included a provision that would have allow employees to use leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act in certain circumstances when their spouse, child, or parent is called for active duty in the military.
But a few weeks later, President Bush vetoed the bill-- the National Defense Authorization Act-- that included the provision. However, it's quite possible that Congress could reintroduce a bill containing the FMLA expansion, since it had nothing to do with the reason for the veto.
Before President Bush vetoed the legislation, we wanted to find out what our readers thought of what we then assumed was going to become reality (the move to veto the legislation came as a big surprise to Democrats in Congress). It turns out that most respondents don't think that an expansion of the FMLA to provide leave for employees with a relative on active duty would have much of an impact, according to a recent Compensation.BLR.com poll.
When asked "If FMLA provided leave for employees with a relative on active duty, how would it impact you?," 71 percent responded "Probably not much of an impact on the company," while 16 percent responded "A potentially huge impact on the company." Meanwhile, 13 percent responded "I'm not sure."
The Compensation.BLR.com poll included 232 respondents.
