California employers of all sizes have a bit less than a year to prepare for a new law to take effect that requires them to provide paid sick leave to employees.
The "Healthy Workplaces, Healthy Families Act of 2014" had been bandied about by Golden State politicians and finally got Gov. Jerry Brown's signature Sept. 10.
California now becomes the second state, after Connecticut, to require that employers provide workers with paid sick leave. However, California's law is more sweeping, in that it extends the requirement to all employers, regardless of number of employees. The Connecticut law kicks in at 50 workers.
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Precedent for the law existed within the state. San Francisco passed a similar city ordinance (exempting small employers) and San Diego is mulling doing the same.
The law takes effect July 15, 2015.
There are various carve-outs and exemptions to the requirement, mainly having to do with employer-employee agreements that already provide sick leave that is at least as generous as that contained in the new law.
But essentially, California employers will have to provide paid sick leave to any employee working 30 or more days a year for a company. The leave accrues at a rate of an hour per 30 hours worked and can be taken 90 days after employment commences.
As reported by the Society for Human Resource Management, the new law adds the predictable administrative burdens to HR departments. But some of the impact was offset as HR advocates successfully amended it, SHRM notes.
"This new law also furthers a recent trend of new California laws that enact substantive rights and impose administrative responsibilities, although arguably in less expansive form due to last-minute amendments proposed by human resources organizations."
SHRM reports that the law comes armed with anti-retaliation measures. The list of them is long enough to ensure that employers will run afoul of the act, thus generating more work for labor law attorneys who practice in California.
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Dan Cook
Dan Cook is a journalist and communications consultant based in Portland, OR. During his journalism career he has been a reporter and editor for a variety of media companies, including American Lawyer Media, BusinessWeek, Newhouse Newspapers, Knight-Ridder, Time Inc., and Reuters. He specializes in health care and insurance related coverage for BenefitsPRO.
