Mining Support Contractors Employee Benefits in Michigan

Joint Employment Under the FMLA

Under 29 CFR 825.106, two businesses that each exercise some control over the work or working conditions of an employee may be joint employers.

The regulation looks at the whole relationship rather than any single factor. It says a temporary placement agency that supplies workers to a second employer ordinarily creates joint employment. A professional employer organization that only handles payroll, benefits, paperwork and policies is not a joint employer by that role alone. If it can hire, fire, assign or direct the client’s workers, or benefits from their work, the answer depends on the facts.

Where joint employment exists, the regulation says only the primary employer is responsible for giving required notices, providing FMLA leave and maintaining health benefits. Primacy turns on who hires and fires, assigns work, runs payroll and provides benefits. A temporary agency is usually primary, and when a PEO is a joint employer the client is usually primary. Jointly employed workers also count toward each employer’s headcount for coverage and eligibility.

For a mining support contractor, the contract with the operator matters as much as the payroll record. We read both before telling you who carries the notices and the leave.

Staffing and contractor arrangements vary widely, so we ask for the master service agreement, the staffing agreement and any PEO agreement, along with who issues assignments and who approves time off. Those documents show where control sits, which is the question the regulation asks.

The 75-Mile Rule and Crews Without a Fixed Site

FMLA eligibility depends on 50 employees within 75 miles of the employee’s worksite, and crews that move make the worksite a real question.

Under 29 CFR 825.111, the 75 miles are measured by surface miles, using the shortest route from the employee’s facility. For employees with no fixed worksite, the worksite is the site assigned as their home base. If there is no home base, it is the site where they report or receive assignments. A personal residence is not a worksite for salespersons or remote workers.

For jointly employed workers, the worksite is generally the primary employer’s office from which the employee is assigned or reports. The regulation changes that when the employee has physically worked for at least one year at a secondary employer’s facility, which then becomes the worksite. Headcount is based on employees maintained on the payroll.

Contractors that rotate crews between operator sites should document each employee’s home base. We help you set that down in writing before a leave request arrives, and we point you to the state paid family and medical leave laws guide for how state rules sit beside the FMLA.

Identifying the Employer and Counting Hours

The employer mandate asks who the employer is, whether an offer of coverage counts as that employer’s offer, and whether the worker is full-time.

26 CFR 54.4980H-4(b)(2) addresses staffing firms. Where the staffing firm is not the common law employer of the worker and offers coverage on behalf of the client employer under a plan the staffing firm sponsors, the offer is treated as made by the client employer only if the fee the client pays for an enrolled employee is higher than the fee for the same employee if not enrolled. We call this the regulation’s staffing-firm fee rule. The section does not define common law employer, so we do not guess. We review the staffing agreement and how the worker is actually directed, and we bring close questions to your counsel.

Hours are the second half. Under 26 CFR 54.4980H-3, an employer using the look-back measurement method treats an employee as full-time if the employee averaged at least 30 hours of service per week over the measurement period. The initial measurement period can run from three to twelve months, the administrative period can run up to 90 days, and the regulation’s break-in-service period is 13 consecutive weeks (26 for educational organizations). See our guide to the employer mandate penalty for what the offer test means in practice.

When a crew member’s coverage ends, federal continuation rules apply. Our COBRA guide covers them.

We also review how each worker is classified in your payroll and benefits systems, since the answers above depend on it. A short list of contract workers, rotating crews and temporary placements is usually enough to start.

Rules and Guides Behind This Page

These guides explain the rules behind contractor crews that rotate across client mine sites.

29 CFR 825.106, Joint Employer Coverage · 29 CFR 825.111, Determining Whether 50 Employees Are Employed Within 75 Miles · 26 CFR 54.4980H-4, Assessable Payments Under Section 4980H(b) · 26 CFR 54.4980H-3, Determining Full-Time Employees

Questions That Come Up

Answers to the questions contractors ask most, each linked to a full page.