Background

Sonoma County (the County) initially enacted Ordinance No. 6320 on August 18, 2020 to provide COVID-19 related paid sick leave to employees not covered by the federal Families First Coronavirus Relief Act (FFCRA) in the unincorporated areas of the County. Ordinance No. 6320 expired on December 31, 2020, however, because its expiration date was tied to the FFCRA.  On January 26, 2021, the County extended Ordinance No. 6320 until June 30, 2021.

On February 9, 2021, the County enacted Ordinance No. 6336, which required all employers in the unincorporated areas of the County to allow their employees to use up to 80 hours of any unused paid leave benefits previously furnished to employees in 2020 for various COVID-19 sick purposes and/or for the care of the employee’s immediate family member whose senior care provider or whose school or childcare provider was closed or was unavailable due to COVID-19 reasons.Continue Reading Sonoma County passes emergency paid sick leave ordinance

As we previously reported, over the past year, New York State has adopted a statewide sick leave law, paid leave for COVID-19 vaccination, and paid quarantine leave.  Last week, the New York State Department of Labor (NYSDOL) issued guidance on the use of New York State Sick Leave (NYSSL) as it pertains

Following last year’s wave of new employment laws (previously covered as follows: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3), Virginia has adopted a variety of new laws that will take effect July 1 and continue to transform the Commonwealth’s employment law landscape. Virginia employers should carefully review these new laws to ensure compliance in this changing environment and in light of newly expanded enforcement mechanisms.

Minimum wage increase

While Virginia adopted incremental increases to the minimum wage set to reach $15 per hour by 2026, the first step-increase was delayed due to the pandemic. Effective May 1, 2021, the minimum wage increased to $9.50 per hour and is set to increase again effective January 1, 2022.  The Virginia Department of Labor and Industry (DOLI) has issued a minimum wage guide for employers that includes an optional workplace posting announcing this increase.

The Virginia Overtime Wage Act

Governor Ralph Northam signed the Virginia Overtime Wage Act, which will take effect on July 1, 2021 and now provides overtime protections for employees under state law (previously overtime protections were only under federal law). While the new law incorporates the exemptions from overtime under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and purports to graft the FLSA’s overtime protections into state law, there are several notable differences between the FLSA and Virginia’s new law.

Unlike the FLSA, Virginia’s new law (i) establishes a three-year statute of limitations thereby allowing recovery of up to three years of back wages, unlike the FLSA’s typical 2-year lookback; (ii) does not provide for any good faith defense for employers; and (iii) forecloses an employer from using the fluctuating workweek method or from paying a fixed amount to cover straight time wages for all hours worked. Accordingly, non-exempt employees paid a salary or on some other non-hourly basis are entitled to overtime for any hours worked over 40 at “one and one-half times” a regular rate of 1/40th of all wages paid for that workweek.  Also unlike the FLSA, the new law’s definition of “employer” includes derivative carriers within the meaning of the federal Railway Labor Act. Unlike prior Virginia law, the new law provides for a private right of action under Virginia’s wage payment statute (with enhanced remedies enacted last year).
Continue Reading Virginia adopts new laws effective July 1 that continue to transform the employment landscape

On March 19, 2021, Governor Newsom signed Senate Bill 95 (SB 95), which creates, in part, new Labor Code Section 248.2.[1] As a reminder, Governor Newsom previously signed AB 1867, which added Labor Code sections 248 and 248.1 to provide COVID-19 Supplemental Paid Sick Leave to food sector workers and employees who worked for employers with 500 plus employees nationwide, respectively. Those requirements expired on December 30, 2020.

Section 248.2 provides covered employees with up to 80 new hours of COVID-19 supplemental paid sick leave (SPSL). SPSL is sick leave in addition to paid sick leave employers are already required to provide under the Health Workplaces, Healthy Families Act. This new requirement goes into effect on March 29, 2021 (although, as discussed below, leave provided on or after January 1, 2021 may be applied retroactively) and expires on September 30, 2021, unless otherwise extended. The Labor Commissioner has already published FAQs for Labor Code section 248.2 here.Continue Reading California requires new COVID-19 Supplemental Paid Sick Leave in 2021

As we previously reported, on March 18, 2020, New York State passed a law providing job protection and benefits to certain employees quarantined or isolated due to exposure to and/or infection with COVID-19. On January 20, the New York State Department of Labor issued supplemental guidance clarifying some important points for employers about complying

The City of Pittsburgh is expected to enact the new Temporary COVID-19 Emergency Paid Sick Ordinance (the “Ordinance”), which provides Pittsburgh employees with a new entitlement of up to two weeks of paid time off for qualifying absences related to COVID-19. While this legislation may be well intended, it presents potentially significant challenges for employers with Pittsburgh-based workforces that have spent the past several months adapting to what seems like an ever-evolving carousel of federal, state, and local laws enacted in response to the pandemic.

With the federal Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) set to expire on December 31, 2020, absent an extension by the federal government, the Ordinance appears to be the City’s effort to provide paid leave rights for qualifying reasons relating to COVID-19.

However, the Ordinance considerably exceeds the FFCRA in the scope of covered employers.  All Pittsburgh employers with 50 or more employees (including employers whose employees normally work in the City of Pittsburgh but are now teleworking from other locations as a result of the pandemic) are covered by the Temporary COVID-19 Emergency Paid Sick Ordinance.  By contrast, the FFCRA’s coverage was limited to only employers with fewer than 500 employees. As such, many larger employers with a workforce in Pittsburgh that were excluded from the FFCRA’s coverage will now immediately have to take steps necessary to provide for the requisite paid leave benefits. Further, even if an employer was subject to the FFCRA and previously took actions to provide for COVID-related paid leave, those employers should immediately update previously established policies to ensure compliance with the Ordinance.
Continue Reading Employers with Pittsburgh-based employees face new requirements to provide COVID-19-related paid sick leave

New York City first adopted a local paid sick leave law in 2014. Over the ensuing six years, the City legislature amended the law several times, including in 2018 to add “safe leave” as a form of paid time off. Late last month, the City amended the Earned Safe and Sick Time Act (ESSTA) yet again – this time to align the Big Apple’s local law with the recently-enacted statewide Paid Safe and Sick Leave law (NYSPSL). As detailed below, the bill builds on and expands the ESSTA’s existing paid safe and sick leave requirements.

Scope of coverage

To start, the amendments modify the scope of workers covered by the ESSTA. Under the prior iteration of the law, the ESSTA only applied to individuals who worked in New York City more than 80 hours in a calendar year. The amended law, however, applies to all individuals employed within the City, regardless of the number of hours worked.
Continue Reading New York City passes key amendments to paid safe and sick leave law

On September 17, 2020, Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 1383 (SB-1383), which significantly expands employee eligibility for family and medical leave under the California Family Rights Act (CFRA).

The law, which will go into effect January 1, 2021, reduces the number of employees required for an employer to be covered under the CFRA and also expands the reasons why employees may take these leaves.

Currently, private employers with 50 or more employees working in a 75-mile radius are required to provide employees with leave under the CFRA, while private employers with 20 or more employees are required to provide limited leave time for baby bonding pursuant to the New Parent Leave Act (NPLA).

SB 1383 expands the leave entitlement to cover smaller employers, requiring employers with five or more employees to provide eligible employees with up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave within a 12-month period for a qualifying reason. Qualifying reasons include:

  • Leave for the birth of a child of the employee or the placement of a child with an employee in connection with the adoption or foster care of the child by the employee;
  • Leave to care for a child, parent, grandparent, grandchild, sibling, spouse, or domestic partner who has a serious health condition;
  • Leave because of an employee’s own serious health condition that makes the employee unable to perform the functions of the position of that employee, except for leave taken for disability on account of pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions;
  • Leave because of a qualifying exigency related to the covered active duty or call to covered active duty of an employee’s spouse, domestic partner, child, or parent in the Armed Forces of the United States;

This list of qualifying reasons further expands leave entitlement beyond what employers are required to provide under the current CFRA and NPLA. Under SB 1383, qualified employees will be entitled to take leave to care for the serious health condition of a grandparent, grandchild, or sibling in addition to the current requirement covering an employee’s parent, child, and spouse or domestic partner.Continue Reading California expands Family Care and Medical Leave eligibility

On September 11, 2020, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) issued a new administrative rule concerning the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA), a federal law that provides two forms of COVID-19-related paid time off to employees of businesses with fewer than 500 employees. The rule comes just over a month after a New York federal court rejected substantial portions of the agency’s prior FFCRA guidance in State of New York v. U.S. Department of Labor et al., No. 1:20-cv-03020 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 3, 2020). And while the new rule does include some revisions based on the court’s critiques, it mostly doubles down on several of the DOL’s prior interpretations of the FFCRA that were rejected by the Court. More particularly, in the new rule, the DOL:

  • Reaffirms that an employee may only take FFCRA leave if the employer has work available for the employee.
  • Reaffirms that intermittent FFCRA leave may only be taken with an employer’s approval.
  • Narrows the definition of the term “health care provider” (although still not as narrowly as that term is defined in other federal statutes).
  • Revises the FFCRA’s documentation requirement to provide that paperwork supporting the need for leave may be given “as soon as practicable” (as opposed to before the leave commences).

The new rule took effect on September 16, 2020 and will remain in place through December 31, 2020, when the FFCRA is set to expire.
Continue Reading DOL doubles-down on FFCRA rules (but amends others) in response to federal court decision

On September 9, 2020, Governor Newsom signed Assembly Bill (AB) 1867 into law, adding section 248.1 to the Labor Code. Under this new section, “hiring entities” are required to provide supplemental COVID-19 paid sick leave (CPSL) to “covered workers.” This is in addition to any paid sick leave that may be available to the covered workers under California’s Healthy Workplace Healthy Family Act of 2014 (HWHFA)[1].

“Hiring entities” include private businesses with 500 or more employees in the United States or public entities that employ health care providers or emergency responders that have elected to exclude such employees from emergency paid sick leave under the Federal Families First Coronavirus Response Act. Notably, there is no exception for unionized workforces with a collective bargaining agreement providing for paid sick leave.

“Covered workers” include individuals employed by a hiring entity that leave home to perform work. Excluded from covered workers are food sector workers, who are instead provided supplemental COVID-19 paid sick leave under Labor Code section 248.
Continue Reading California requires new COVID-19 supplemental paid sick leave