Posted on June 25th, 2015
Just when us employers think we have all these laws straight we get hit with more!
The latest changes are related to sick leave and will be implemented soon so be ready!
Find out the new California Sick leave law for 2015.
The Assembly Bill 1522, declares that any employer with employees in the state of California must comply with the new state’s Pay Sick Leave Law as of January 1, 2015. The right to accrue and take sick leave under the new law, takes effect July 1, 2015.
Any employee who works for an employer for at least 30 days and satisfying a 90 days employment period, starting on or after January 1, 2015 qualifies for paid sick leave.
All employers ( big or small) must provide their California employees with at least 3 days ( 24 hours) of paid sick leave each year, to all employees who work at least 30 days in a year and that satisfied a 90 days employment period. Since the 90 days is like a probationary period, the employee most satisfy this requirement to qualify for paid sick leave.
If the employee works 30 days or more during the year but did not work for the employer the 90 days probationary period, the employee is not entitled to receive sick leave and the employer does not have to recognize the employee with paid time off due to illness.
The law indicates that ALL employees who work 30 days within a year in California including part-time, per dime and temporary employees are protected by this new law.
The only exceptions are providers of publicly funded in home supportive services, individuals employed by an air carrier who already receive fairly compensated time off. Employees covered by collective bargaining agreements with specified provisions are also exempt from this law.
Here is a short synopsis we’ve prepared for you, to help you remember the basic points of this new California paid sick law:
- Employers must keep track of all employees accrual and use paid time leave or include them under existing fair paid time off policies
- Employers must provide paid sick leave to each employee who works at least 30 days a year.
- Employers must make sure a California Paid Sick Leave section is added to the Employee Handbook.
- Employers keeping track of employees paid sick leave must choose to provide sick leave in a block grant or accrued over time.
- Employers must make sure that employees accrued sick leave is reflected in their paid stub in an additional paper parallel with their paycheck. You should confirm with payroll departments or third party processors to make sure this is being done correctly.
Starting July 1, employees are entitled to 3 days of sick leave per year. Following the accrual method, your employees will earn one hour of paid sick leave for every thirty hours worked. This may give a total of 8 or more days a year for your employees who work full time, but you can limit the sick leave to a total of three days.
Under the accrual method an employee can also carry over unused sick days from one year to the next but you can still limit your employee from using more than three days.
If you follow the lump-sum method, you can give your employees three paid days of sick leave at the beginning of the year and no accrual or carry over applies. So your employees don’t carry over unused sick paid leave but they will be entitled to three new sick days the next year.
If your employee leaves her job, she cannot cash out any unused paid sick days, but if she gets rehired within 12 months, she can claim the days she had accumulated.
Employers have to pay their employees each day according to the regular hourly day, but if your employees pay fluctuates, for instance, if she gets commissions, the employer will have to divide the total compensation for the previous ninety days, by the number of hours and pay that rate.
Remember to always show in your employees pay stubs or documents, which need to be printed on the same day as the paychecks, the amount of days of sick leave your employee has available.