The Essential Guide to Family & Medical Leave

20 | the essential guide to family and medical leave
company is a “secondary” joint employer (as discussed in “Joint Employers
and the FMLA,” below), it may still have to comply with certain FMLA
requirements.
Covered Companies May Not Have Eligible Employees
To be eligible for leave under the FMLA, it’s not enough that employees work
for a covered company; they must also meet certain individual eligibility
requirements, as explained in Chapter 3. One of these requirements is that
the employee must work within a 75-mile radius of 50 or more company
employees.
As a result of this rule, a company that’s covered by the FMLA might not
have a single eligible employee. For example, a nationwide company might
have outlets in a hundred major metropolitan areas, each employing 20
to 30 employees. Yet, if none of those outlets are with 75 miles of another,
none of the company’s employees would be eligible to take FMLA leave.
In this situation, the company would still have to post notices and provide
information on the FMLA (see “If Your Company Is Covered,” below), but it
wouldn’t have to provide leave.
Joint Employers and the FMLA
Even if it doesn’t meet the criteria described above, your company could still
be subject to the FMLA if it is a “joint employer.” A joint employer shares
control with another company over the working conditions of the other
company’s employees. This happens when your company contracts with
temporary agencies or shares employees with a contractor or subcontractor,
for example. If, counting joint employees, your company meets the
requirements described above, your company is subject to the FMLA.
However, its FMLA responsibilities to the joint employees depend on
whether it’s a “primary” or a “secondary” employer, as we explain below.