I work for a non-profit agency with 12 full-time employees, 1 part-timer, and 1 employee whose time is shared with the city. I've been there close to two years and work over 1250 hours a year. Our money comes mostly from the government and we do have some private investors. We're a 501(c)3 agency and I'm not sure how much time I can take off for pregnancy. Ideally, I would like to be at home for about 9 weeks but not sure if they'll allow that. I'm not worried about insurance since we have that through my husband's job but I would like to take as much time off as possible. It looks like we'll be hiring another person by the end of this year/beginning of next and I'm due in June. How much time do I get by law? Could I negotiate more time if I need/want it?

Thanks.

Your employer is not large enough to be covered by the Family and Medical Leave Act. There would need to be 50 or more employees within 75 miles of your job site for it to fall under FMLA. While there are some laws that apply to organizations that accept government funds, FMLA is not one of them. Your employer is also currently too small to fall under the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (15 or more employees) which would require it to extend to you the same leave it would extend to a non-pregnant employee who needs to take medical leave. You're going to need to sit down with your employer and see what mutual agreement you can reach.

I didn't think we would since we're so small but I've read somewhere that in Iowa there are different numbers. Like if there are four or more employees then you get 6 weeks. I wasn't sure if there is another cut-off for 8 or 12.

Thank you for a quick reply.

Iowa has a pregnancy leave law that gives 8 weeks if there are four or more employees. It's important to note that is pregnancy leave, not family leave. Generally, unless a woman has an especially difficult delivery, 8 weeks is the maximum time that she is disabled from giving birth.