I’m not sure where exactly to post this, I’m mainly looking for advice on how my wife and I should approach this issue with our company.
My pregnant wife and I (married) work at the same company in RI (for the last 7 years) and are having a child at the end of January. FMLA states that if two spouses work for the same company, they are only entitled to 12 weeks of leave total. I think this is an absolute ridiculous clause, but that is beside the point.
Rhode Island has its own Family / Parental Leave act called RIPFMLA, which has some slight differences, one of them being that there is no the limitation on sharing the leave allotment for spouses at the same company. The HR department at our company is claiming Paternity leave is not covered under this state leave policy and that only birthing / recovering from birth is covered (despite the specific statute identifying adoption as a valid reason for leave, section 28-48-1 and 28-48-2 in the RI laws), limiting us to taking leave under the federal FMLA policy and sharing leave. I’ve contacted the Department of Labor and Training for RI and asked them about this (in addition to multiple attorneys), all of which agree that Paternity leave should be a valid reason for leave under the state law. Is there anything I should do to try work around this situation?
TL;DR: Company wants to limit my wife and my leave for the birth of our son based on the federal FMLA policy, but I think it’s in violation with RI state law, given that we should be eligible for either.