Peaceful Revolution: Support Injured Soldiers, Support FMLA

Last week, to mark the 5th anniversary of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, I spent an afternoon reading the moving stories of the now 4,000 dead and over 30,000 wounded servicemembers. As I read, another powerful story emerged--that of the mothers, spouses, and families of soldiers, and the shameful lack of support for these families once their loved ones return from the war.

Denise Bittle in Boston has lost three jobs in order to care for her husband, who was severely injured in a 2003 suicide bombing in Baghdad (Read her story at The Boston Globe). Along with caring for their young son, she, like an estimated 14,000 other families in this country (iava.org compiled data) is caring for an injured veteran.

There is some help coming. In January, Congress passed, and the President signed, a bill to expand the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) to allow family members up to 26 weeks of job protected, unpaid leave to care for injured service members. This increase in the number of weeks (from 12 to 26) will give families like the Bittles time to adjust to the often demanding and life-changing needs of a person with mental or physical injuries from war, with less worry about losing a needed job.

But, this essential help to military families could be delayed.

Why? Because while the Department of Labor is working to implement the FMLA expansion for military families, in the name of efficiency, they lumped the expansion implementation in with a series of new rules that are completely unrelated to the military issue, and could restrict everyone's access to taking family leave. The result? Military families could end up waiting for months for their expanded leave while a fight to keep the FMLA widely available for everyone goes on. (See the National Partnership for Women and Families for excellent background on both of these issues.)

Both soldiers and their families are contributing to the U.S. as a whole, and should not bear the cost of their contribution alone. That's why MomsRising.org is taking action, and you can too!

You can help now by writing to the Department of Labor today to tell them to act now for military families. Click here to easily send a letter to the Department asking them to move forward quickly with the military expansion, and to hold back on the other set of regulations changes which are unrelated to the military family issue and would restrict the FMLA. The more letters the Department receives, the more likely they will be to move this issue through quickly.

Regardless of what each of us thinks about the war, providing support to the military families is the important and right thing to do--and we also need to care for all families by stopping the proposed rollbacks of the FMLA.

Now is not the time to tie a benefit for military families up in needless delays. Families of service members need our help and support today.

A Peaceful Revolution is a weekly blog about work/life satisfaction done in collaboration with MomsRising.org. Read a post by a leading thinker in the field every week.

Comments

[RoseMerry]

Unpaid? The bills don't stop, the children still need food. Make it PAID LEAVE and join civilization.