Rhode Island Family Military Leave

The Family Military Leave Act, Rhode Island General Laws chapter 30-33, gives unpaid leave to the family of a person called to military service. It is narrower than it is usually described in three ways that decide whether a given employee actually has it. The amount depends on the employer's size. An employer with between fifteen and fifty employees provides up to fifteen days of unpaid family military leave. An employer with more than fifty provides up to thirty days. Employers include the state of Rhode Island, its municipalities, and other units of local government. An employer with fewer than fifteen employees is outside the act. The first narrowing is in the definition of employee at section 30-33-2(1), which most summaries of this act skip entirely. An employee is one who has been employed by the same employer for at least twelve months and has worked at least one thousand two hundred fifty hours of service during the twelve-month period immediately preceding the leave. Those are the federal Family and Medical Leave Act thresholds, imported wholesale. A new hire, or a part-time employee under roughly twenty-four hours a week, does not have this leave however large the employer is. The same definition contains a sentence that reads against type: "'Employee' does include an independent contractor." Statutes of this kind almost always exclude contractors, and the surrounding text gives no clue that the inclusion is deliberate. The entry prints it as enacted. A Rhode Island contractor whose spouse is deployed has a textual argument here that is worth making. The second narrowing is who can take it. Family military leave is leave requested by an employee who is the spouse or parent of a person called to military service lasting longer than thirty days, under orders of the Governor of Rhode Island or the President. Spouse or parent. Not a child of a deployed servicemember, not a sibling, not a domestic partner. And the underlying call-up has to exceed thirty days. The third is that the leave is not additive. Section 30-33-3(d) provides that an employee shall not take leave under the act unless they have exhausted all accrued vacation leave, personal leave, compensatory leave or time, and any other leave that may be granted, with the exception of sick leave and disability leave. In practice most employees will burn their vacation before the statutory days begin. Notice is fourteen days in advance where the leave will run five or more consecutive workdays, and as much advance notice as is practicable for shorter leave. The employee should consult the employer to schedule the leave so as not to unduly disrupt operations, and the employer may require certification from the proper military authority. What the act gives in return is solid. Section 30-33-4 entitles the employee on expiry of the leave to restoration to the position held when the leave commenced, or to a position with equivalent seniority status, employee benefits, pay, and other terms and conditions of employment, unless the employer proves the failure to restore was for reasons unrelated to the exercise of the right. During the leave the employer shall make it possible for the employee to continue benefits at the employee's expense, and the two may negotiate for the employer to carry them. Section 30-33-5 bars an employer from interfering with, restraining, or denying the exercise or attempted exercise of the right. No disability rating is involved, so the rating filter never hides this entry.