California Employers Affected by Numerous New Employment Laws
Supporters are calling it “historic” and a shot in the arm to working-class Americans. Critics contend it’s a job killer. Me? Just one more thing I can blog about.
On September 10, 2014, Governor Jerry Brown signed the Healthy Workplaces, Healthy Families Act of 2014 (Assembly Bill 1522), making California the second state in our great union (damn you, Connecticut!) to provide paid sick leave to employees. Under the legislation, which will take effect on July 1, 2015, employees will earn a minimum of one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours of work.
Before all you California employers start making plans to relocate to Mexico, the law is not as economically crushing as it appears. The HWHFA (seriously, no one could think of an act name with a better acronym?) authorizes employers to limit an employee’s use of paid sick days to 24 hours or 3 days in each year of employment. And the employee’s right to use accrued sick days does not begin until the 90th day of employment. See? Not so bad, right? You can live with that. Just be sure to satisfy the posting, notice, and recordkeeping requirements. And make sure not to retaliate against any employee who requests paid sick days—that’ll get you into trouble.