The Essential Guide to Family & Medical Leave

318 | the essential guide to family and medical leave
Massachusetts
Small Necessities Law (Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 149 § 52D)
Covered Employers: Employers with at least 50 employees.
Eligible Employees: Employees who are eligible under the FMLA.
Reasons for Leave: Employee may take leave to:
• participate in school activities directly related to the educational
advancement of the employee’s child, such as parent-teacher conferences
or interviewing for a new school
• accompany the employee’s child to routine medical or dental
appointments, and
• accompany an elderly relative (someone who is related to the employee
by blood or marriage and is at least 60 years old) to routine medical or
dental appointments or appointments for other professional services
relating to the relative’s care.
This leave is in addition to FMLA leave.
Amount of Leave: Twenty-fours hours in any 12-month period.
Procedural Requirements
• Notice: Employee must ask for leave in writing at least seven days in
advance; if the need for leave is not foreseeable, employee must provide
as much notice as is practicable.
• Certification: Employer may require employee to provide certification of
the need for leave.
• Paid Leave: Employees may substitute, or employer may require employee
to substitute, accrued paid leave for this time off; paid sick leave may be
used only as allowed by the employer’s policies.
Maternity Leave (Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 149, § 105D)
Covered Employers: Employers with at least six employees.
Eligible Employees: Female employees who have completed the employer’s
probationary period or have worked for the employer for three months (if
there is no probationary period).