Maternity Leave Policy - is this legal?

KochavKatan · July 2014

So I just had several meetings at work with A. Benefits department B. HR and C. my direct supervisor. According to benefits/HR, I must take my vacation days during my (mostly unpaid) FMLA time (I wanted to take it after, to extend my time out of the office). Is this legal/allowed?

poptart109 · July 2014

Mine too. Except my std doesn't even kick in til my vacation time is all used up.

legaleagle22 · July 2014

Same thing here too. They say that it protects us because automatically a week of our short term disability is used up in processing so say you get 6 weeks of short term disability, you only get 5 weeks paid.

I haven't stockpiled my time off, but whatever time i do have, will be applied to the time that gets burned up...

I think it is shitty in general but I go back to work the last week of December so whatever PTO i have will be gone.

littlemissmarla · July 2014

Yup, my husband has to use 2 weeks paid vacation before he can get NJ Family leave insurance.. NJ gives 6weeks to bond with an infant at 2/3 pay and DH's company requries him to use at least 2 weeks vaca first.

Leysin97 · July 2014

Yes. I have to use all of mine up so of baby gets sick once I return to work I have to go leave without pay. I have long term disability I am going to use too so I was hoping to save a few days in case baby gets sick or when I have to take her to her Dr. appts but that's not possible.

KochavKatan · July 2014

Thanks for the replies, ladies. At least I don't feel like I'm dealing with this alone.

I do wish I lived in Canada just about now, though.. haha

526SadieSadie · July 2014

Not all companies mandate that you use your accrued vacation time before FMLA kicks in but some do, totally legal. FMLA is unpaid but some states (RI, CA and I think NY) offer TDI which will pay 80% of your weekly salary as long as your doctor signs you out and it can be extended several times.

cozybluebear · July 2014

You are always required to use all your vacation and personal time up first.

tbarker14 · July 2014

Even in Canada, you have to use up your vacation/sick/special leave time first before you can go onto maternity/paternity leave. Which you cannot take until the baby is actually born. (depending on the agency you work at) at least my DH has to. And we live in Canada. But we are not complaining because he can take up to 4 months off with normal pay. (Ei/ work top off the percentage) so again we can't complain. My work won't top off the percentage of Ei, so im stuck with just the Ei rate, and splitting time with my husband which again isn't a problem for us.
At times like these I am grateful that we live in a country that gives the ability for us to stay home with our LO as long as we can.

nilvero · July 2014

Yep it's legal. The school district I work for makes you use it all before FMLA can kick in. It's one of the reasons I'm not even taking FMLA... So I will have one or two days to cover me if I need to take off for baby.

saraeric · July 2014

We have to use up all of our sick leave/vacation time during maternity leave if we want any of it paid and we can only use up to 8 weeks worth of that time. The last 4 of my 12 weeks will be unpaid.

FrodaBaggins · July 2014

Mine too. Required to use my short term disability for 6 or 8 weeks, depending on what type of birth I have, then use up my accrued vacation/sick time, then the rest would be unpaid if we didn't have Paid Family Leave here in California. But we do, so...yay. But it is totally legal.

caballablanca · July 2014

cozybluebear said:

You are always required to use all your vacation and personal time up first.

My company doesn't require this.

tbarker14 · July 2014

MorseBrooks said:

tbarker14 said:

Even in Canada, you have to use up your vacation/sick/special leave time first before you can go onto maternity/paternity leave. Which you cannot take until the baby is actually born. (depending on the agency you work at) at least my DH has to. And we live in Canada. But we are not complaining because he can take up to 4 months off with normal pay. (Ei/ work top off the percentage) so again we can't complain. My work won't top off the percentage of Ei, so im stuck with just the Ei rate, and splitting time with my husband which again isn't a problem for us. At times like these I am grateful that we live in a country that gives the ability for us to stay home with our LO as long as we can.

No you don't - unless it's the company trying to tell you that - in fact any vacation/sick time you take during the 2ww for EI gets deducted from the EI. It does help you if the last day you took before starting mat/pat leave is a sick day (no 2ww). Hubby's work won't top up, nor will they participate in the work while on leave (it's too much hassle to deal with HR is what his supervisor said) so because I don't qualify he's going back to work after taking 2 weeks vacation, and not taking any pat leave. But he could have taken 2 weeks vacay, and then started pat leave still having his remaining 2 weeks vacation left.

Mat benefits and leave can start before the baby is born (up to 2 months before due date) - but Pat leave can't start until the baby is born.

Thanks for Clarifying about when Mat leave can be taken vs paternity leave.

I guess every company is different and it depends on where you live (province etc) I know in Ontario my sister was able to take Matt leave and use Ei, However she didn't get the top off from work. Whereas lucky my Husband's work will do the top off..

Like I mentioned every company/who you work for is different. Since I am a teacher and I am due in September So I am taking my Mat leave right away until our LO is born (due in middle of Sept). My work will not top off which is fine with us as I mentioned.

Basically I was saying that I'm happy to be getting anything at all unlike some who are unfortunate in the states.

YogaSandy · July 2014

tbarker14 said:

MorseBrooks said:

tbarker14 said:

Even in Canada, you have to use up your vacation/sick/special leave time first before you can go onto maternity/paternity leave. Which you cannot take until the baby is actually born. (depending on the agency you work at) at least my DH has to. And we live in Canada. But we are not complaining because he can take up to 4 months off with normal pay. (Ei/ work top off the percentage) so again we can't complain. My work won't top off the percentage of Ei, so im stuck with just the Ei rate, and splitting time with my husband which again isn't a problem for us.
At times like these I am grateful that we live in a country that gives the ability for us to stay home with our LO as long as we can.

No you don't - unless it's the company trying to tell you that - in fact any vacation/sick time you take during the 2ww for EI gets deducted from the EI. It does help you if the last day you took before starting mat/pat leave is a sick day (no 2ww). Hubby's work won't top up, nor will they participate in the work while on leave (it's too much hassle to deal with HR is what his supervisor said) so because I don't qualify he's going back to work after taking 2 weeks vacation, and not taking any pat leave. But he could have taken 2 weeks vacay, and then started pat leave still having his remaining 2 weeks vacation left.

Mat benefits and leave can start before the baby is born (up to 2 months before due date) - but Pat leave can't start until the baby is born.

Thanks for Clarifying about when Mat leave can be taken vs paternity leave.

I guess every company is different and it depends on where you live (province etc) I know in Ontario my sister was able to take Matt leave and use Ei, However she didn't get the top off from work. Whereas lucky my Husband's work will do the top off..

Like I mentioned every company/who you work for is different. Since I am a teacher and I am due in September So I am taking my Mat leave right away until our LO is born (due in middle of Sept). My work will not top off which is fine with us as I mentioned.

Basically I was saying that I'm happy to be getting anything at all unlike some who are unfortunate in the states.

But you don't take your vacation time. I'm a teacher in Ontario too. My mat leave started the day my son was born. Two weeks unpaid. 50 weeks paid. Any income I make would have to be claimed and deducted from my benefits (as vacation would be). They were very clear about that when I was there. I could share my 35 weeks paternity leave (as the first 15 are considered healing time for me) with DH, but it would be the same rules.

tbarker14 · July 2014

YogaSandy said:

MorseBrooks said:

tbarker14 said:

Even in Canada, you have to use up your vacation/sick/special leave time first before you can go onto maternity/paternity leave. Which you cannot take until the baby is actually born. (depending on the agency you work at) at least my DH has to. And we live in Canada. But we are not complaining because he can take up to 4 months off with normal pay. (Ei/ work top off the percentage) so again we can't complain. My work won't top off the percentage of Ei, so im stuck with just the Ei rate, and splitting time with my husband which again isn't a problem for us. At times like these I am grateful that we live in a country that gives the ability for us to stay home with our LO as long as we can.

No you don't - unless it's the company trying to tell you that - in fact any vacation/sick time you take during the 2ww for EI gets deducted from the EI. It does help you if the last day you took before starting mat/pat leave is a sick day (no 2ww). Hubby's work won't top up, nor will they participate in the work while on leave (it's too much hassle to deal with HR is what his supervisor said) so because I don't qualify he's going back to work after taking 2 weeks vacation, and not taking any pat leave. But he could have taken 2 weeks vacay, and then started pat leave still having his remaining 2 weeks vacation left.

Mat benefits and leave can start before the baby is born (up to 2 months before due date) - but Pat leave can't start until the baby is born.

Thanks for Clarifying about when Mat leave can be taken vs paternity leave.

I guess every company is different and it depends on where you live (province etc) I know in Ontario my sister was able to take Matt leave and use Ei, However she didn't get the top off from work. Whereas lucky my Husband's work will do the top off..

Like I mentioned every company/who you work for is different. Since I am a teacher and I am due in September So I am taking my Mat leave right away until our LO is born (due in middle of Sept). My work will not top off which is fine with us as I mentioned.

Basically I was saying that I'm happy to be getting anything at all unlike some who are unfortunate in the states.
But you don't take your vacation time. I'm a teacher in Ontario too. My mat leave started the day my son was born. Two weeks unpaid. 50 weeks paid. Any income I make would have to be claimed and deducted from my benefits (as vacation would be). They were very clear about that when I was there. I could share my 35 weeks paternity leave (as the first 15 are considered healing time for me) with DH, but it would be the same rules.

But I don't live in Ontario... That's my whole point, each provenience and company / agency would be different. ( I only mentioned Ontario, by knowing my sister lives in Ontario and what she was able to get)

I really do not mean to hack the OP question... I was just stating that I am really lucky and happy that my husband's company is more than accommodating in retrospect to those in the states and in other parts of Canada.

again my point is that each company is different... it sounds like in the states according to the FMLA rules you have to take your vacation time first. Which the OP was asking about. I also wanted to stress that even in Canada its not all that glorious as it seems. Since there are different policies according to company and provenience.

Anyway, to the OP good luck and I do know the ladies on this board would be better assistance when it comes to the states policies.

Justabean3 · July 2014

Where I work

It goes vacation,holiday, comp time and then sick and then short term but you get 480 FMLA non paid hours of leave (which is whatever you available total hours I mentioned earlier + whatever is left of your 480 with no pay). If you have any of the 4 above hour categories available you have to use those during your FMLA

So if I had

Vacation 70
Holiday 16
Comp 40
Sick 80

Then I would get 190 hrs paid and 290 not paid with short term leave for however long that lasts IN the 290 left.

Clear as mud, great

maybebride · July 2014

MrsMuq said:

cozybluebear said:

You are always required to use all your vacation and personal time up first.

No, you aren't, at least not in the US.

This part is going to depend on your company's STD requirements, not FMLA. As others have stated, ALL FMLA does is protect your job for up to 12 weeks. How you take your time and how you are paid for it is up to you company's policy. My company uses a special parental leave STD, so I was paid 8 weeks at 100% for the birth of DS (it will be 12 weeks if I have another) and then used my PTO to to 12 weeks. I was actually NOT allowed to take vacation time after birth until after the 8 week period. But, many standard STD policies do require you to exhaust your own time first.

Tinkerbell084 · July 2014

It's legal, agree with all PP who have stated it all depends on your company's individual policy, in conjunction with your qualifications for Short or Long term disability, and FMLA. As a federal employee, I do not qualify for programs, such as state funded STD. We must use a combination of our own PTO and FMLA (unpaid - if we'd like to extend the time). My organization does not require the exhaustion of personal leave, PTO may be utilized simultaneously in the same pay periods with FMLA - but that may be agency specific policy.

Ceridwen21 · July 2014

tbarker14 said:

Even in Canada, you have to use up your vacation/sick/special leave time first before you can go onto maternity/paternity leave. Which you cannot take until the baby is actually born. (depending on the agency you work at) at least my DH has to. And we live in Canada. But we are not complaining because he can take up to 4 months off with normal pay. (Ei/ work top off the percentage) so again we can't complain. My work won't top off the percentage of Ei, so im stuck with just the Ei rate, and splitting time with my husband which again isn't a problem for us. At times like these I am grateful that we live in a country that gives the ability for us to stay home with our LO as long as we can.

@tbarker14 - Nope, not true (at least in my case). I can save up my vacation and sick days, and can start taking (and collecting) my maternity leave benefits up to 8 weeks before the due date. Maybe it varies by province? I'm in Quebec. We are also entitled to take up to an additional 17 weeks unpaid once the EI runs out (I'm taking an additional 8 weeks, so 60 weeks total). Spouses can take 5 weeks of paternity leave at any point during the first year of the baby's life (QC only, I'm pretty sure).

ETA: Whoops, didn't see all of the follow-up posts that were already written. Sorry.

StefanyaMarie · July 2014

Unfortunately it is legal. I have to exhaust my PTO before taking any unpaid maternity leave. Also in our company policy, you have to use 5 days as an elimination period for short term disability. So you basically just lose 5 days of PTO for no good reason. It sucks but I looked into with my first LO and it is completely legal. Sorry...I feel your pain!

JSS1002 · July 2014

cozybluebear said:

You are always required to use all your vacation and personal time up first.

That's not true. With my last, I had 8 weeks fully paid maternity leave, and then I went unpaid for a few more weeks. I did not use any of my PTO / vacation time.

butterlfy2007 · August 2014

I don't even have FMLA time because I haven't been at my job for 1 year. I will have STD, but can't use it until the baby is born and unsure of how long I can stay gone.

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