Description 

Effective January 28, 2008, employees may be granted military family leave care for a seriously injured or ill service member. The serious illness or injury must have been incurred in the line of duty while on active duty in the Armed Forces.

Definition of Family Member

The employee must be the spouse, son, daughter, parent or next of kin (defined as the nearest blood relative) to the service member.

Eligibility

Employees are entitled to:

• Up to 26 weeks of unpaid military family leave during a single 12-month period to care for the service member.
• A combined total of 26 weeks of military family leave and regular FMLA leave during a single 12-month period. For example, if on January 1, 2008, the employee wants to take 6 weeks of regular FMLA for the birth of a child and military family leave to care of a service member, the 6 weeks of regular FMLA is subtracted from the combined 26 week entitlement, leaving the employee with 20 weeks of military family leave to use during 2008 to care for the service member.

The use of this entitlement in a single 12-month period does not limit the use of regular FMLA leave during any subsequent 12-month periods. For example, if an employee uses 26 weeks of military leave from January 1, 2008, to December 31, 2008, but has not used any regular FMLA leave during that same period, then the employee would be entitled to use up to 12 weeks of regular FMLA leave beginning January 1, 2009.

Note: This leave is unpaid leave for which an employee may substitute any accumulated annual or sick leave.

Note: Normal leave year limitations on the use of sick leave to care for a family member do not apply.