Childbirth. Sick parent. Chronic illness. At some point, one of these events has a high chance of striking every working person.

To deal with the consequences in the workplace, Congress passed and President Bill Clinton signed the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) in 1993.

Statistics showed why the law was necessary. In 1990, for example, only about one-third of all women working at firms with more than 100 employees were eligible for maternity benefits, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The rest were forced into either caring for their newborn children or risk losing their jobs.

Now, more than 6 in 10 American workers are covered and eligible under the act, said the U.S. Department of Labor in a 2000 survey on the FMLA. According to the data released in January, more than 35 million such workers have benefited from taking leave for family and medical reasons since 1993.

Take Angela Allyn of Evanston. When she was pregnant with her third child, she was happy to be working at a social service agency where the act was mandated. For her first two babies, she had to return to work just two to three weeks after delivery. One of the infants was colicky. "It was like, `Oh my god, I can't do this,'" Allyn said.

For the third child, born six months ago, Allyn was able to take a full 12 weeks off, three weeks before the baby's birth and nine weeks after.

"I think it's one of the best pieces of legislation that's been passed in the last five years, because I remember what it was like before," Allyn said. "It's a wonderful thing."

In cases of adoption, FMLA allows scenarios that were once rare if not impossible.

Dany Fleming, a newly adoptive father, is just back at work after taking 6 weeks off to care for his infant son Jack. Fleming said if his non-profit employer had not officially agreed to back FMLA, he doubts he would have been allowed to take any leave at all.

His employer is technically too small to fall under the federal guidelines. But it wrote the act into human resource policies anyway. "It made it easier than it otherwise would have been," Fleming said. He took two weeks paid time off, two weeks unpaid and two weeks vacation.

What are the basic components of the law? Primarily that any public employer--whether state, local or federal--and any private employer with more than 50 workers in 20 or more weeks must allow employees to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave in a 12-month period for specified family and medical reasons.

Those are birth and care of a newborn child; placement of an adopted or foster child; care of an immediate family member (spouse, child, parent) with a serious health condition; or taking medical leave when the employee is unable to work because of a serious health condition.

In some cases, employees can take leave intermittently, that is in blocks of time by reducing their normal weekly or daily schedule. In every case, health benefits must be maintained and workers must be able to return to the same or an equivalent job with the same pay, benefits and other terms of employment.

All employers covered by the law are required to display a poster on the act in a place where all employees can easily see it.

There are also requirements on the employees' part. The person must work for a covered employer, have worked there for a total of 12 months, have worked at least 1,250 hours in the previous 12 months and work at a location in the United States where at least 50 employees work within 75 miles.

Also, the employee must provide 30-day notice to the employer if the leave is foreseeable.

Employers are also entitled to require any accrued or unused vacation or sick leave to be used as part of the total 12 weeks. If more than 12 weeks is needed, an employer can agree to additional time off but is not required to do so by law.

The words "serious health condition" are specifically defined. They mean an illness, injury, impairment or physical or mental condition requiring either in-patient hospital, hospice or medical- facility care. Or it may involve continuing treatment by a health- care provider that includes any period of incapacity.

In Illinois, an effort is underway to help new parents and workers with ill family members. The measure, which would require the state to help pay the cost of providing workers paid time off, was passed by a committee in the Illinois Legislature in March but is not likely to come to a full Legislature vote this session.

Allison Salerno, an editorial writer at a newspaper in East Brunswick, N.J., has used FMLA twice in the last five years for the birth of her two sons. In addition to using the federally mandated time, she was able to negotiate additional unpaid leave with her employer.

"I think if there hadn't been a Family and Medical Leave Act, I wouldn't have returned to work," Salerno said, "because I wanted that time with my babies."

Not only was her job protected in both cases, but after returning to work the first time, "I actually got promoted," she said.

The good news from the Department of Labor survey confirms that employees like Allyn and Salerno are definitely using the act to take needed time off. But the data also showed that even those who are eligible often don't use it, mostly because they cannot afford to.

"The good thing about the law has been the job protection," said Melissa Josephs, a Chicago-based senior policy analyst with non- profit advocacy group Women Employed. "The downside is that it's unpaid."

On the Women Employed job issues hotline, Josephs said callers often state their concern that they cannot use the Family and Medical Leave Act if they don't get paid.

"The current survey found that lack of pay was the No. 1 reason workers who needed leave did not take it," said then-Secretary of Labor Alexis Herman in a statement accompanying the report.

Another reason workers did not use the act was concern about job security. "Almost one-third of all workers who needed leave but did not take it cited worries about losing their job as a reason," Herman said.

The survey also ranked the reasons why employees did use FMLA.

Of those taking leave during the survey period, the biggest reason- -cited by more than half of respondents--was for the employees' own health. Care for an ill child, spouse or parent was next. Care for a newborn, newly adopted or newly placed foster child was third.

Elizabeth Zapf, a human resources manager at professional services firm Andersen, said FMLA is used fairly often there, mostly for maternity leave. She said it not only benefits the employee but also offers the company itself some protection. "It ends up being good for us, because after 12 weeks, if we need to put someone in that position, we can do so."

Others agree that FMLA has filled a significant void in the workplace.

"Family leave is like 911--you don't use it unless you truly need it but it's critically important when you do," said Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, the author of the act, in a statement about the Department of Labor data.

"Thankfully this report indicates that family leave is doing what it should--helping families--but now we need to do more to ensure that even more people can access its benefits."

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