Firing after surgery?

[Al Iglesias]

What is the name of your state? FL
Hi to Beth and fellow members:

I have a client who has a printing company in Florida with 10 employees. The employees have no sick pay but have vacation time after one yr. of employ. My client asked me a side question as to the legality of possibly letting go of one of her employees who had surgery right before xmas of 2004 and has not returned. they have not issued a paycheck but are paying her health coverage for her. Sounds like a bad situation for this person with the surgery, but I was asked and was not sure. I could be wrong but I guess the FMLA covers companies with 50 or more employees and in Fl it sometimes seems anything goes... Look forward to your comments.

Al
Tampa, Fl

 

[Beth3]

Hi, Al. Glad to see you survived all the hurricanes last fall.

You are correct that the federal FMLA applies only to employers with 50 or more employees. Florida has very few employment regulations of their own and typically follow federal law in nearly everything. In the interests of your small client companies not having to make these decisions on a case-by-case basis (which they are free to do but can become excrutiating), your client might want to develop some sort of medical leave policy for themselves. It could be a maximum of 30 days for everyone. Or it could be two weeks of leave per year of service to a maximum of 8 weeks. Whatever your client feels is appropriate for them. (I've just thrown out two suggestions.) Naturally the time doesn't have to be paid. Since it's a voluntary policy, the employer would be able to be more generous when they felt it necessary.

This is FL's DOL website in case you ever want to look anything up directly: http://www2.myflorida.com/les/