Unpaid job protected leave

Family Medical Leave (FML) is unpaid job protected leave available to eligible employees who are experiencing a qualifying event, such as - 

• When you are unable to work due to illness, injury or pregnancy.
• When you need to be absent from work to care for a family member who has a serious health condition.
• When you need to care for a child due to birth, adoption or foster care placement.
• When you need to be absent from work for a qualifying exigency leave because your spouse, son, daughter or parent is on covered active duty (or has been notified of an impending call or order to covered active duty) in the Armed Forces.
• When you need to care for your spouse, child, parent or next of kin undergoing medical treatment, recuperation, or therapy, is in outpatient status, or is on the temporary disability retired list for a serious illness or injury incurred or aggravated in the line of duty on active duty in the Armed Forces (includes the National Guard or Reserves). This includes a veteran who was discharged from the Armed Forces for reasons other than dishonorable within the 5 year period before the employee’s first day of leave.
• When you need any other type of leave that may be covered by applicable state leave laws.
• Thirty days before a planned leave based prescheduled medical treatment related to a serious health condition for you or your family member, or the expected birth, adoption or foster care placement of a child.

Required to use family and medical leave if eligible, approved, and entitlement is available
You typically cannot save your job protected leave for specific events you are expecting in the future. You also cannot save your job protected leave and use it only after all your paid leaves have exhausted. If you are experiencing a family and medical leave event, it is UA's responsibility to ensure that you are provided with the job protected leaves available to you. Please reach out to ua-hr-leaves@alaska.edu.

Sabbatical and family and medical leave
If a faculty member on sabbatical experiences a family and medical leave qualifying event and applies, they can remain on sabbatical leave status unless there is an agreement among the faculty member, their union, and the university to the contrary. However, per the CBA, faculty on Sabbatical Leave may not use Faculty Time Off (FTO) or Sick Leave so they should consider options carefully. Any agreement with the union and faculty member must be developed in conjunction with the provost/dean/director, and must deal with practical issues, such as whether any sabbatical deliverables will be due, when the faculty member will next be eligible for sabbatical, whether they return to regular status immediately, etc.

A supervisor may complete an AbsenceSoft request on behalf of an employee who is unable to create the request themselves.

Employees are required to report any absences within 30 days.

There are a few options for salary continuation. You may be eligible for more than one option depending on your circumstances/event.​

There are a few options for returning to work depending on your circumstance. Please review the information below and email ua-hr-leaves@alaska.edu if you have any questions or concerns about returning to work after your leave has completed.