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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

The enactment of paid sick leave laws began as a state and local employment law trend roughly a decade ago, gaining substantial momentum in the mid-2010’s.  Amidst this wave, New York City adopted a paid sick leave law in April 2014.  The City Council later amended the law – in May 2018 – to provide employees with “safe leave” as well.  And in 2019, Westchester County enacted its own paid sick and safe leave law.

Now, more than six years after NYC adopted the original iteration of its paid sick leave law, New York State has enacted its own statewide paid sick leave law (NYPSL), which takes effect on September 30, 2020.  Principally, NYPSL provides paid time off for certain sickness-related reasons, with the specific amount of time varying based on employer size and net income.  Below is a summary of the new law’s key provisions.
Continue Reading Everything you need to know about New York’s forthcoming statewide paid sick leave law

The Empire State recently announced strict measures to protect against the spread of COVID-19 by individuals returning to New York from states experiencing a spike in cases.  Specifically, on June 24 Governor Cuomo signed Executive Order 205 (EO 205), which requires individuals returning to New York from a state that meets either of the following conditions to quarantine for a period of 14 days:

  • a positive test rate higher than 10 per 100,000 residents, or
  • higher than a 10 percent test positivity rate over a seven day rolling average.

This new order comes in the wake of a recent upsurge in cases around the country and currently covers travelers returning from Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Utah, and Texas.  However, it is expected that this list will continue to grow, as more states see an uptick of new cases.  Any violation of a required quarantine may be deemed a violation of EO 205, resulting in a civil penalty of up to $10,000.
Continue Reading New York state further restricts eligibility for its paid quarantine leave

On May 1, 2020, Councilmember Kendra Brooks (At Large) announced a proposed bill, co-sponsored by Helen Gym (At Large) and Bobby Henon (6th District), that would increase the amount of paid sick leave available to workers who continue to physically report to their jobs during a “public health emergency.” This bill comes on the heels of much outcry from state and local officials hoping to address the fact that millions of workers have been excluded from federal emergency paid leave during the COVID-19 pandemic. While the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) and the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act create certain emergency sick time provisions for workers, these statutes exclude many employees. In Pennsylvania alone, more than 3 million workers have been excluded the law’s exemptions. The Brooks bill would certainly address these shortcomings.
Continue Reading Philadelphia councilmembers propose bill to increase paid sick leave for many federally excluded employees

On May 12, 2020, Oakland passed an emergency ordinance joining Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Jose in requiring employers to provide paid sick leave to employees for COVID-19-related reasons.  Codified as Code of Ordinances Chapter 5.94 and known as the “Protecting Workers and Communities During a Pandemic – COVID-19 Emergency Paid Sick Leave Ordinance” (Emergency Paid Sick Leave), Oakland’s new paid sick leave requirements aim to fill the gaps in the coverage provided by the federal Families First Coronavirus Relief Act (FFCRA).

Covered employers

Unlike the FFCRA, which only applies to employers with fewer than 500 employees, Oakland’s new paid sick leave requirements apply to all private employers, regardless of the number of employees, but subject to the exemptions noted below.  Covered employers must pay the Emergency Paid Sick Leave payment by no later than the payday for the next regular payroll period after the employee takes Emergency Paid Sick Leave, and no more than 14 days after the employee takes Emergency Paid Sick Leave.
Continue Reading Oakland passes COVID-19 paid sick leave

The worldwide COVID-19 pandemic has had, and will continue to have, a substantial impact on the U.S. workplace. We have prepared a series of FAQs compiled based on some of the more common questions that clients with California-based employees have posed to us over roughly the past six weeks.

These FAQs are general and high-level…