Beginning July 1, 2015, California employers must provide paid sick leave to their employees. The new law, called the Healthy Workplaces, Healthy Families Act of 2014, applies to hourly employees and exempt employees. Unlike some employment laws, there is no exemption for small employers.
The law does not apply to providers of in-home supportive services or, under certain conditions, to members of an air carrier flight deck or cabin crew. In addition, in a continuing trend of statutory exemptions being granted for employers with unions, the law does not apply under certain conditions to certain unionized employees. The law applies to all other employees as provided below.
Under the new law, employees who work in California 30 or more days within a given year (starting from the date of employment) are entitled to paid sick leave at an accrual rate of not less than 1 hour for every 30 hours worked (i.e., about 5 to 6 hours per month for a full time employee). Sick leave hours begin to be accrued on the later of (i) the first day of employment, or (ii) July 1, 2015. An employee who is exempt from overtime requirements is deemed to have worked 40 hours per week, unless the exempt employee’s normal workweek is less than 40 hours, in which case the employee accrues paid sick leave based on that reduced workweek.
An employee is entitled to begin using accrued sick leave on the 90th day of employment. Unused, accrued sick leave carries over to the following year, except that an employer may cap the total accrued sick leave to 48 hours or 6 days. An employer may also limit an employee’s use of paid sick leave to 24 hours or 3 days in each year of employment. However, if an employer provides at least 24 hours of sick leave generally at the beginning of each employment year, then the accrual and carryover rules do not apply. That is, no sick leave needs to be carried over to the following year and an employer can avoid the burden of incrementally accruing sick leave throughout the year by granting the full 24 hours of sick leave up front.
An employee may use sick leave for a broad range of purposes, including injury, illness, and preventive care. The leave may be used for the employee or for the employee’s family members (which is broadly defined). In addition, sick leave may also be used for time off due to domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking.
If an employer already has a paid time off, or PTO, policy (which usually combines paid vacation and sick leave), the employer is not required to provide additional paid sick leave, so long as the PTO policy provides an employee with paid leave for the same purposes, at least under the same rates, and under the same conditions as required under the new law.
Unlike vacation pay, an employer is not required to pay out accrued sick leave upon an employee’s termination of employment. If, however, the employee is rehired within one year, then the employee’s prior accrued sick leave must be reinstated. In addition, if the sick leave is included in a PTO policy as described above, then all accrued PTO must be paid out on termination of employment.
Employers must post a notice in the workplace disclosing certain specified portions of the law. Employers must also give written notice on each pay day to each employee of the amount of sick leave accrued (or PTO accrued in lieu of sick leave). The notice must be given either through the employee’s wage statement or by a separate writing. Employers must keep records of sick leave accruals, hours worked, and sick leave used for at least three years.
Additional rules apply regarding, among other things, how sick leave is calculated and paid, employee notification requirements upon a foreseeable sick leave, advance lending of sick leave by the employer, and the setting of minimum sick leave increments that may be used at any one time.
Finally, an employer may not discriminate or retaliate against employees who use sick leave. Violation of the new law subjects an employer to considerable penalties, including in certain cases attorneys’ fees incurred in actions against the employer to enforce the law.
