As previous posts have discussed, federal law gives workers in Detroit, Michigan, the right to take an unpaid leave when they need to stay home from work to recover from a medical condition or after they have a child. They also have the same rights when they need to care for relatives.
It is an unfortunate reality, however, that many Michigan employers do not fully appreciate the rights their workers have under the Family and Medical Leave Act, or FMLA. Even if they understand the law, employers may make employees jump through unnecessary hoops to get the leave. In the worst case scenario, they may effectively try to keep an employee from exercising their FMLA rights.
Finally, even if an employer does grant a person leave and, as required, holds their job open, they may later retaliate against the employee, coming up with excuses to discipline them or even fire them, even though the reality is the employer did not like having to keep the employee’s job open. Our law office is available to represent Detroit workers who are having issues related to their rights under the FMLA, especially when their employers are trying to deprive them of these rights.
We act as reliable counselors. If it becomes necessary to pursue legal action, we can assist an employee with filing a claim with the Department of Labor, which is usually the first step to taking legal action. While we always hope that filing an administrative claim will solve our client’s problem, we are also equipped to file a case for our client in federal court, if necessary and to pursue our client’s rights through litigation.