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G. Your Family and Medical Leave Benefits
Local 27 members are eligible for family medical and leave benefits from both the State of Washington and the City of Seattle. This section provides an overview of the Federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), Washington State’s Paid Family and Medical Leave Program, and the City of Seattle’s Paid Family Care Leave Program.
This section does not include a comprehensive list of the benefits available to you from the State of Washington and/or the City of Seattle. It is focused on the primary medical and family leave benefits from these two entities.
The Federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA)
The Federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) entitles employees of covered employers to take unpaid, job-protected leave for specified family and medical reasons with continuation of your group health insurance coverage under the same terms and conditions as if the employee had not taken leave. This includes:
- Twelve workweeks of leave in a 12-month period for:
- The birth of a child and care for the newborn child within one year of birth;
- the placement with the employee of a child for adoption or foster care and to care for the newly placed child within one year of placement;
- to care for the employee’s spouse, child, or parent who has a serious health condition;
- a serious health condition that makes the employee unable to perform the essential functions of his or her job;
- any qualifying exigency arising out of the fact that the employee’s spouse, son, daughter, or parent is a covered military member on “covered active duty;” or
- Twenty-six workweeks of leave during a single 12-month period to care for a covered service member with a serious injury or illness if the eligible employee is the service member’s spouse, son, daughter, parent, or next of kin (military caregiver leave).
The FMLA guarantees your right to unpaid leave for specified family and medical reasons, but does not provide you with any paid family or medical leave benefits. Local 27 members have paid dependent care benefits for both family members and newborns available from the State of Washington and the City of Seattle. If you have exhausted your available paid family care benefits from the State and City, you can use your accrued paid leave benefits to care for your qualifying dependents.
Washington State’s Paid Family & Medical Leave Program
Washington State’s Family Care Act allows workers to use their choice of any paid leave they have earned while caring for qualifying family members with a serious health condition or to care for a child with a serious health condition. Local 27 members have paid dependent care benefits for both family members and newborns, which are available from the state and the city.
In addition to the dependent care benefits available from the State and City, the Family Care Act allows you to use the following earned paid leave benefits for dependent care leave, including:
- Paid sick leave
- Vacation
- Paid time off
- Personal holidays
- Merits
- Certain specific short-term disability plans
Under the act, however, leave cannot be used for a worker’s personal medical condition.
Note that you can use leave covered under the Family Care Act to care for a child exposed to coronavirus (COVID-19) who must be isolated from school or their place of care, even if the child does not have any symptoms of the illness.
Qualifying for the State’s Paid Leave Benefit
To qualify for the state’s Paid Leave benefit, you must have worked for 820 hours in your qualifying period, which is usually the first four of the last five completed calendar quarters.
Visit the “Qualifying Period Definition” page on the Washington Paid Family & Medical Leave website for more information.
Who Counts As a Qualifying Family Member?
Who counts as a “qualifying family member” when it comes to family leave? The Washington Paid Family & Medical Leave program allows you to take paid time off to care for a family member with a serious health condition or if you’re bonding with a new baby or child in your family. You may use family leave to care for:
- Spouses and domestic partners
- Children (biological, adopted, foster, or stepchild)
- Parents and legal guardians (or spouse’s parents)
- Siblings
- Grandchildren
- Grandparents (or spouse’s grandparents)
- Son-in-law and daughter-in-law
- Someone who has an expectation to rely on you for care, whether you live together or not
The state may require documentation about your relationship to the person or certification of their medical need.
Visit the “What is family leave?” page on the Washington Paid Family & Medical Leave website for more information.
Applying for Paid Family & Medical Leave from the State
To apply for paid family and medical leave from the state, you must:
- Notify the department at least 30 days before you plan to take leave (if the event is foreseeable).
- Experience a qualifying event.
- Apply for leave (wait to apply until after your qualifying event).
- Receive a determination letter in the mail.
- Complete your waiting week (exceptions: bond leave or military exigency don’t have a waiting week)
- File your weekly claims to get paid (you may have an unpaid waiting week)
Visit the “Apply Now” page on the Washington Paid Family & Medical Leave website for more information on applying.
Visit the “File Your Weekly Claim” page on the Washington Paid Family & Medical Leave website for more information on filing your weekly claim.
How Much Time Do I Get?
Within your claim year, you can take:
- Up to 12 weeks of medical leave or family leave. Medical leave is for recovering from or getting treatment for a serious health condition. Family leave is for taking care of a qualifying family member who has a serious health condition, for bonding with a new child, or for certain military events.
- Up to 16 weeks of combined medical and family leave if you have more than one qualifying event in the same claim year. This could include medical leave for pregnancy or to recover from giving birth, then family leave to bond with your baby. Or you could qualify for family leave to care for a family member, then medical leave for yourself within the same year.
- Up to 18 weeks of combined medical and family leave if you experience a condition in pregnancy that results in incapacity, like being put on bed rest or having a C-section. There is a checkbox on the Certification of Serious Health Condition form where your healthcare provider should certify that your serious health condition is related to pregnancy.
Using Your Paid Leave
You do not have to take your Paid Leave all at once. But you must claim eight consecutive hours of leave each week or claim zero hours if taking intermittent leave. For example, you can take one day off a week to care for a family member undergoing chemotherapy treatment. Or you can take your leave in full weeks to recover from your own major surgery.
How Much Will I Get Paid?
When you take paid leave, you can receive up to 90% of your weekly pay—up to a maximum of $1,456 per week in 2024. Use the state’s payment calculator to estimate your weekly pay during paid leave.
Job Protection
The department is not required to keep your job for you if any of the following is true:
- You’ve worked for the City for less than a year
- You’ve worked less than 1,250 hours (about 24 hours a week) for the City in the year before you took leave
For More Information
Visit the Washington Paid Family & Medical Leave Program website for more information on the state’s program.