California has passed a law providing employees whose spouses are on active military duty with protected leave from work to be with their spouses when they are on leave from duty.

Governor Schwarzenegger signed Assembly Bill 392 into law last month and it became effective immediately. The Bill has two main components:

1. An employer of more than 25 people must provide an employee with up to 10 days of unpaid leave when their spouse is on leave from military duty; and
2. The employer is prohibited from retaliating against a qualified employee for requesting or taking this leave.

To me, one of the most surprising aspects of this law is that the employer must grant the leave, regardless of the circumstances-no exceptions. This is uncommon in employment law where there are usually at least some exceptions where the employer can deny the leave.

Under the Family Medical Leave Act, for example, non-emergency medical leave requests the employer can make the employee wait to take the leave if they are a "key employee" or if it is a very busy time of the year for the employer. Other leave laws allow similar exceptions where it will cause a "hardship" on the employer.

However, under this new California leave law, it looks like employers have no right to deny the leave request, no matter how essential it is that the employee be at work. This does make sense, of course, because the employee's spouse will only be off of leave during a set period of time.

This is a very interesting development in the law and the fact that it went into effect immediately makes me wonder how many spouses and military personnel know about it. If you know someone who has a spouse in the military, be sure to remind them of this opportunity to take time off from work to be with their spouse!