California Passes COVID-19 Supplemental Paid Leave

Friday, September 25, 2020

OVERVIEW

Employers with greater than 500 workers nationally, and employers of healthcare-provider and emergency-responder workers beforehand exempted from Households First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) necessities, should present California workers with two weeks of supplemental paid sick depart for specified COVID-19 causes. Along with offering paid depart, the regulation requires employers to adjust to urgent-notice and posting necessities which might be administratively burdensome. Employers topic to the brand new necessities ought to work with authorized counsel to develop sensible options for fast compliance.

IN DEPTH

On September 9, 2020, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into regulation Meeting Invoice 1867, the California COVID-19 Supplemental Paid Sick Go away Act (the Act), which created new Labor Code §§248 (meals service staff) and 248.1 (lined staff) and amended Labor Code §248.5 (paid sick days). The brand new regulation is meant to bridge the hole between the FFCRA, which utilized solely to employers with fewer than 500 workers, and Government Order No. N-51-20, which offered depart solely to food-sector staff.

Efficient instantly, employers with 500+ workers nationally, and employers of healthcare-provider and emergency responder workers beforehand exempted from FFCRA necessities, might want to make California supplemental paid sick depart accessible to all workers by September 19, 2020.

To be eligible for supplemental paid sick depart, workers should be required to depart their dwelling to carry out their work and should be unable to work as a result of they’re:

Topic to a federal, state or native quarantine or isolation order associated to COVID-19.

Suggested by a healthcare supplier to self-quarantine or self-isolate resulting from issues associated to COVID-19.

Prohibited from working by the employer resulting from well being issues associated to the potential transmission of COVID-19.

Full-time workers are entitled to 2 weeks (80 hours) of supplemental paid sick depart, whereas part-time workers could have variable entitlements relying on their previous schedules and hours labored. The relevant price of pay for supplemental paid sick depart is the very best of the worker’s common price of pay, the state minimal wage, or the native minimal wage. Nonetheless, supplemental paid sick depart is capped at $511 per day and $5,110 complete per worker.

Staff are entitled to supplemental paid sick depart beneath the brand new regulation along with any paid sick depart made accessible to them beneath an employer’s current non-COVID-related paid sick depart insurance policies. Additional, employers can’t require that workers exhaust different accessible sorts of depart previous to utilizing their California supplemental paid sick depart entitlement. Nonetheless, if an employer has already put in place some kind of COVID-19 supplemental depart, it may be credited towards such depart established by the California COVID-19 Supplemental Paid Sick Go away Act.

The regulation incorporates fast discover and posting necessities, which embrace a poster that should be made accessible to workers by September 19, 2020, in addition to obligatory printing of the quantity of obtainable California COVID-19 supplemental paid sick depart balances on workers’ wage statements by the following pay interval following September 9, 2020. The California Labor Commissioner has offered a mannequin poster for employers’ use that may be accessed by clicking right here.

The Act expressly authorizes the labor commissioner to implement its necessities, together with investigating violations and ordering short-term aid to mitigate violations. Within the occasion COVID-19 supplemental paid sick depart is unlawfully withheld, the employer could also be topic to an administrative penalty of not less than $250 per day, a penalty to not exceed $4,000 within the combination. The state labor commissioner or lawyer common might also carry civil motion to gather different authorized or equitable aid, together with reinstatement, again pay, the cost of sick days unlawfully withheld, and liquidated damages. Whereas there is no such thing as a non-public proper of motion beneath the brand new regulation, workers might also be capable to assert Personal Lawyer Normal Act (PAGA) claims for violations of the brand new regulation.