Need Advice or Info on Pregnancy leave in CA

[abelenkpe]

Hello Dahlings! I am about to have a baby and am getting conflicting information from my employer's HR department on exactly how long I can take off from work after the baby arrives. Any parents here from CA who are up on the latest greatest laws or who could point me in the best direction for getting that info?

Two years ago I took six months off after having my son. Six weeks were covered under disability and six weeks were covered under Paid Family Leave. After that I took an additional 12 weeks off unpaid and returned to my job. However now we have a new HR person who is telling me that it is illegal in the state of CA to take unpaid time off. Is that true? She is also saying that they would not allow me to extend my time off by adding my saved weeks of PTO to the end of the Paid Family Leave because they would pay me during the time I am away and on Paid Family Leave which I would rather not have them do. Also, I find this suspicious because one of my co-workers asked her about taking time off using Paid Family Leave to care for his newly adopted son and asked about using his PTO to make up the difference in his salary, and this same woman told him he couldn't do that. Why would she tell me one thing and him another?

Anyway, it's all very convoluted and has much to do with the new 'corporate' attitude of the company. So if I could just talk to someone who knew what was legal, how long a company had to hold or guarantee one's job, etc. that would be fantastic. Any info would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

edited to add:

(I am hoping to stretch my time off out to five or five and a half months because we have no family in the state and the daycare will not accept babies under six months.)

[nosillies]

1. Here's a document that might be helpful

http://orb.sfusd.k12.ca.us/forms/HR/FMLA_FAQ_Supervisors.pdf#search=%22fmla%20california%22

And this website is excellent. I've provided a link to the page for women's issues. http://www.workplacefairness.org/guide?attribute%5B%5D=221

Taking unpaid time off is not illegal. That's just silly. That would mean all those workers who don't qualify for PTO would be heading for jail every time they took a vacation!

However, you only have the protection of not losing your job/being demoted/keeping benefits under FMLA (12 weeks). The most important thing to look at is what benefits/time off are/are not provided for people with disabilities at your specific company. You should have the same conditions -- no more or less -- as others with disabilities. This is found in Title VII. You're really dealing with federal laws more than state laws here.

One other thing to consider: are you an at-will or contracted employee? If you're at-will, then once you exhaust any FMLA or disability leave, the employer can terminate you fairly easily if they choose.

[abelenkpe]

3. thanks!

I've got a contract and have been with the same company for a while. I love it there, but they are going through some serious growing pains right now. They used to be a nice small company to work for and now they are greatly expanded and even have an office in (gasp!) India. Everyone is worried about the future and hoping it will all turn out OK. All the staffers are worried about their jobs, and so I am doubly worried since I will be out and not up on what's going on. Looking for a job is not what I was hoping to do with my time off caring for baby. Well, only time will tell what will happen.

Those websites are awesome, and have really been helpful. Thank you so much!

[Dora]

2. Unpaid time off is at the employer's discretion.

Unpaid time off is up to your employer. It's not illegal to approve or deny requests for unpaid leave. I work for a major public university, and the policy manual for the university system has a policy re: unpaid leave. It says in sum that it's up to the employee/supervisor to work it out.

Federal law says you're required to be given 12 weeks unpaid Family Medical Leave (which can be used for the care of adoptive infants). When I used mine, I stayed at home full-time for nine weeks, and then I used my remaining FML to work part-time.

Rather than interpreting and clarifying the many and confusing laws, policies, and requirements/restrictions at the federal, state, and employer level, it seems to me your HR person is power tripping and trying to act as an enforcer, rather than as a source of information and guidance. I think you should complain to higher ups.

[abelenkpe]

4. my friend

who I share an office with and his wife just adopted a littel boy. He was hoping to take some time off with the Family Medical Leave and HR told him that he could not supplement his FML with his PTO. Which is odd since they want to supplement mine. Maybe it's just the general confusion of the new staff in HR getting their information mixed up. I don't know. I would rather think it was a mistake than delibirate. Of course I wouldn't know who to complain to anyway.

I was told today that I can actually have six weeks of unpaid job protected time off, so hopefully all will be well. Just need to be able to have either my hubby or I available to take care of the baby until she is old enough to go to daycare. And then we need to keep our jobs so we can afford daycare, and school and rent and food and gas and.....oh inflation. Why is everything going up in price while our salaries are not?

Everyone in our company was called in a few weeks or so ago and told that our 3% cost of living raise was put on hold indefinitely due to financial problems. And shortly thereafter that the health care was going up. But Bernanke said today that "Rising incomes should support the U.S. economy...."

I wanna know what that guy is smoking. The only people with rising incomes are oil executives.

Thank you so much for the info. You are the best!

[nosillies]

5. Good luck with everything, and congratulaitons, BTW!

I'll have a new little one myself for a Christmas present!

Hopefully HR will get their act together. I've worked as a liasion with HR for people before, and I've found that HR doesn't usually want to break laws and be mean, they just don't all understand all the laws. And rightfully so, it's confusing! At the end of the day, sometimes hiring a labor law specialist to work on your behalf for a couple of hours is surprisingly affordable and a good investment, if necessary.

Keep us posted on how things are going!