Does your organization provide paid sick leave to its employees? If it doesn’t now, it soon will have to. Effective July 1, 2015, California employers will be required to provide sick leave to most employees. Our friend Nicole Kamm from the law firm Lewitt, Hackman, Shapiro, Marshall & Harlan fills us in on what the new law means for California employers:
On Wednesday, Sept. 10th, Governor Jerry Brown signed the paid sick leave bill (Assembly Bill 1522) into law. This means that, effective July 1, 2015, California employers, regardless of size, must provide most employees paid sick leave. Eligible employees will be entitled to at least three paid sick leave days per year.
California is the second state to enact such a law (Connecticut was the first), but AB 1522 – the Healthy Workplaces, Healthy Families Act 2014 – is more expansive. According to the bill’s author, Lorena Gonzalez (D-San Diego):
We become the first state in the nation to guarantee paid sick days for every single private-sector worker in the state — no matter what industry they work in, no matter if they are part-time or seasonal, and regardless of the size of their employer…This means more than 6.5 million more workers in this state will be able to take up to three days off when they or their child is sick without fearing the loss of income, hours or their job.
Employers who already provide paid sick leave should review their policies in view of these new requirements to ensure compliance. And employers who currently do not provide paid sick leave will need to review the new law and implement a compliant sick leave policy.
For more details on the new law, read Nicole’s full blog. If you have questions about implementing the new law, contact Nicole or your organization’s employment attorney or HR professional for help.