Dennis Oglesby
LIT1 Task 1 The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 provides protection for the employee when medical or family issues arise that cause them to miss work. Without this act, employers would be allowed to terminate ill employees or those who must provide care for their families. There are, however, provisions for when this act is applicable. The first major provision dictates how many employees a company must have in order to be susceptible to the rules it presents. According to the law, employers with 50 or more employees within a 75 mile radius must abide by the policies of the act. A second provision explains which employees are protected. In order to qualify for coverage, an employee must have worked for a company for at least 12 months, with 1250 hours of documented service time. A third provision of the FMLA details the actual protections that are provided to employees. Qualified employees are to be granted up to 12 weeks of leave per year. This guarantees that they will still have a job when they return, as well as their original salary amount; however, it adds that the time off does not have to be paid time. Employers are not required to pay employees while on FMLA leave (Leave Benefits, n.d.). When determining whether the act applies to a given situation, it is important to determine whether both the employer is susceptible to the standards and whether the employee qualifies for the protections. Our company has more than 75 employees, placing us above the threshold of 50 employees set by the act. Therefore, the company must follow the mandates. The employee in situation A has been with the company for two years, and is covered after just one year of employment. It is safe to assume that he has worked the 1250 hours required in this period. He has been on leave for 11 weeks, which is less than the maximum of 12 allowed. He also took this leave for the birth of a child, which is covered under the statutes. For all of these reasons, this employee is a protected party. After evaluation of situation A, I have determined that the company has not violated the Family and Medical Leave Act. As a company, we were required to return him to work, at his previous title and rate of pay, which was allowed. The FMLA does not require the leave to be paid and the manager was entirely within his rights to withhold salary for the 11 weeks of leave. The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 was enacted to prevent discrimination of employees of advanced age in the workplace. It dictates that no employment-related decisions should be based on age. It is set out to protect workers who are 40 or older. Employers cannot refuse to hire someone over this age simply due to their age. They are also prohibited from determining promotions, layoffs, benefits, etc. using age as a deciding factor when involving an individual over 40. All employers who have 20 or more employees are susceptible to the rules of the ADEA, including all government agencies (Facts About Age Discrimination, n.d.). The rules of the ADEA certainly apply to Company X, since there are more than 75 employees, far above the cutoff of 20 employees. Therefore, Company X is required to abide by the standards set in the act. Employee B, being 68 years old, is a protected employee. He has far surpassed the age requirement of 40 contained in the ADEA and is covered by the stipulations within the act. Unfortunately, when comparing situation B with the standards of the ADEA, it is clear that a blatant violation of the law has occurred and should be corrected immediately. It is unlawful to tell the employee, who is protected due to his age, that he is being denied a promotion due to age. Adding to the problems for the company, the employee can prove that his previous performance reviews were far superior to those of the younger employee who was awarded the promotion. Employee B has strong grounds for complaint of discrimination and the company should act quickly to correct the previous actions taken. The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 was established to protect individuals with disabilities from discrimination in the workplace. The act protects anyone with a documented or obvious physical or mental disability from being prevented to obtain or perform a job. The act requires that employers, who have 15 or more employees, make reasonable accommodations for a qualified disabled individual to perform the job. This is required of the employer unless the accommodations would create an undue hardship on the company. Undue hardship requires documentation of significant expense or difficulty in implementation of the necessary accommodations (Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, AS AMENDED with ADA Amendments Act of 2008, n.d.). The ADA applies to all employers with 15 or more employees and, with more than 75 employees; Company X is certainly required to abide by the law. Applicant C is clearly a disabled individual, as he requires the use of a wheelchair to move about. He has documented evidence of paralysis in both legs and has shared his disability with the company. He would most certainly be considered a protected individual by the ADA. Determining whether a violation has occurred in situation C can be somewhat difficult, based on the vague definition of undue hardship. It is important to logically determine what could be considered an undue hardship. Company X clearly has multiple buildings, since it is indicated that the building in question is the headquarters building. It is also a large building requiring multiple floors and several different elevators. One would logically assume that the company is relatively successful with a building of this size. The accommodations required to hire this individual include only one day of work and $1000. It would be very difficult to prove in a court of law that this would truly create an undue hardship on the company. For this reason, a violation has occurred and should be remedied immediately. Even if the cost of the elevator modifications truly created undue hardship, the company would need to find other less expensive options to make work possible for the applicant. One suggestion could even include a pole for the employee to push the buttons on the elevator. With these simple options being available, it is unlawful for Company X to deny employment based on undue hardship.

References
Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, AS AMENDED with ADA Amendments Act of 2008. (n.d.). Retrieved June 13, 2015, from http://www.ada.gov/pubs/adastatute08.htm#12111
Facts About Age Discrimination. (n.d.). Retrieved June 13, 2015, from http://www.eeoc.gov/facts/age.html
Leave Benefits. (n.d.). Retrieved June 13, 2015, from United States Department of Labor: http://www.dol.gov/dol/topic/benefits-leave/fmla.htm