Page:Alaska Airlines v. Judy Schurke - Panel Opinion.pdf/6

6 have enough sick leave to cover the time she off she needed in May. The state agency that administers the Washington statute agrees with Masserant’s interpretation of the Washington statute.

The Washington statute does not create an entitlement to paid time off, sick leave or otherwise. It limits an employee to whatever her entitlement may be "under the terms of a collective bargaining agreement or employer policy." And it requires that “[t]he employee taking leave under the circumstances described in this section must comply with the terms of the collective bargaining agreement or employer policy applicable to the leave, except for any terms relating to the choice of leave."

The Alaska Airlines-Associated Flight Attendants collective bargaining agreement entitles employees to use available leave, however denoted, to take care of a sick child. It expressly provides that “sick leave” is usable for illness of a family member, not just the employee, and that availability of leave to care for family members is as broad as “the most liberal of the States in which flight attendants are domiciled.”