First, the corporate lobbyists want a narrower definition of serious illness, to make it harder for parents to take leave to care for children with illnesses that keep them out of school and under a doctor's care for less than five days. The business groups think employers should be able to fire a mother who stays home for three or four days when her child gets the chickenpox or has surgery but not for five days, apparently.
Second, they want new restrictions on the use of intermittent leave. The Chamber of Commerce contends that it encourages abuse to allow employees to take leave in amounts less than four hours at a time. Even if the employee needs just an hour to visit the doctor before coming to work at 9:30 a.m., they want to force the employee to take four hours of unpaid time.
At first glance, it seems strange for businesses to make employees be absent longer than they need to be and, at second glance, it still seems strange. But there is method in the meanness. By forcing employees to lose four hours of pay, the business lobbyists hope to discourage them from using FMLA leave at all. As disability groups point out, the workers most likely to be hurt will be those with chronic conditions who use intermittent leave most frequently.
http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/Stories/0,1413,206~11851~3010120,00.html