This week, first lady Michelle Obama and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis released proposed rules to implement and interpret two sets of 2009 amendments to the Family and Medical Leave Act that would expand leave entitlement to military caregivers and airline flight crew employees.

Solis said the proposed rules would allow an eligible employee to take leave before, during, or after a service member's deployment abroad to tend to matters linked to their service, such as attending military briefings and making financial and legal arrangements. She also said the proposal would increase from five to 15 days the amount of leave an eligible employee can take to spend time with a military member on “rest and recuperation” leave during a period of deployment.

The rule also would implement December 2009 amendments to the FMLA dealing with the airline industry's unique scheduling requirements. To meet the new hours-of-service eligibility requirement, a flight crew member or flight attendant must have worked or been paid for at least 60 percent of the “applicable total monthly guarantee, or the equivalent,” for the prior 12-month period for the employer.  

But the notice of proposed rulemaking goes beyond implementing the military leave and airline flight crew provisions:

• The regulations currently allow an employer to use different increments of FMLA leave at different times of the day or shift under certain circumstances. According to DOL, some employers have construing this to mean they can use a larger FMLA leave increment at certain points in a shift than what is used for other types of leave during the same period. The proposal would nix this practice, “in favor of the more general principle of using the employer's shortest increment of any type of leave at any time.”

• Proposed new regulatory language also would emphasize that it is the employer's responsibility to restore employees to their equivalent positions at the end of any FMLA leave as soon as possible.

Another proposed rule from the Labor Department--this time from the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs--has prompted House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman John Kline (R-Minn.) and Rep. Phil Roe (R-Tenn.) to ask OFCCP to turn over additional information on its proposal to revise federal contractors' nondiscrimination and affirmative action requirements for individuals with disabilities. OFCCP last month issued a notice of proposed rulemaking to amend its regulations at 41 C.F.R. part 60-741, which implement Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act.

Kline and Roe, chairman of the Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions Subcommittee, said “thorough review” of OFCCP's proposal “is essential to our common goal of ensuring effective administration and enforcement” of federal contractors' equal employment opportunity obligations.

A DOL representative told Bloomberg BNA this week that OFCCP plans to respond to the House members' letter, but has a policy “to not respond publicly to such requests.” Kline and Roe's letter follows OFCCP's recent decision not to grant at this time comment-period extensions requested by several employer association. The comment period is set to close Feb. 7.

Mark your calendars: here are some of the labor and employment conferences and webinars coming up this month. If you go, be sure to say hello to your friendly, neighborhood Daily Labor Report reporters, because we are planning to attend all of these: 

• All aTwitter About Social Networking:Impact on Arbitration Practice, Procedure and Cases, Feb. 9, webinar. Sponsored by the American Arbitration Association University, American Arbitration Association, 1633 Broadway, 10th Fl., New York, N.Y. 10019; telephone (212) 716-3977; e-mail AAAUniversity@adr.org.
• NLRB Election Procedures Amended, Feb. 16, New York. Sponsored by Cornell University ILR School.
• Traps for the Unwary When LawsCollide—RLA, ERISA, and Retaliation Claims, Feb. 21, webinar. Sponsored by Bloomberg BNA, 1801 S. Bell St., Arlington, Va. 22202; telephone (703) 341-3000.
• Federal Labor Standards LegislationCommittee Midwinter Meeting, Feb. 22-24, Key West, Fla. Sponsored by the American Bar Association Section of Labor and Employment Law, 321 N. Clark St., Chicago, Ill. 60654-7598; telephone 1-800-285-2221.
• Committeeon Development of the Law Under the NLRA Midwinter Meeting, Feb. 26-29, Key West, Fla. Sponsored by the American Bar Association Section of Labor and Employment Law, 321 N. Clark St., Chicago, Ill. 60654-7598; telephone 1-800-285-2221.