Hunton Employment & Labor Perspectives

Although there is no federally-mandated paid leave for U.S. employees in the private sector, states have increasingly required that employers provide various forms of paid leave to their employees.  That trend continues as several states began imposing requirements upon employers to permit employees to accrue and use paid sick leave for certain medical situations for employees or members of employees’ immediate families.  Paid sick leave for employees in the private sector is now required by 17 states, the District of Columbia, and various municipalities around the country.

Several new and expanded paid family leave programs signed into law this month present employers with administrative challenges and concerns about business productivity.

California

California’s Paid Family Leave (“PFL”) program, which took effect in 2004, was the first of its kind in the nation. Funded by employee contributions to the State Disability Insurance program, and administered through that program, PFL in California provides employees with partial wage replacement (currently 55%, up to a weekly maximum of $1,104 in 2015) for a period of up to six (6) weeks in order to bond with a new child, or to care for a parent, child, spouse or domestic partner with a serious health condition. This wage-replacement program does not guarantee job protection, so normally it is taken concurrently with job-protected leave under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act (“FMLA”) or its California analog, the California Family Rights Act.

Earlier this month, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved six weeks of fully-paid leave for new parents, the first city-wide legislation of its kind in the nation. Parents are entitled to the benefit if they have been employed by the employer for at least 180 days, work at least eight hours per week within the city or county of San Francisco, spend at least 40% of their hours per week working within the city or county of San Francisco, and are eligible to receive paid family leave from the State of California under the California Paid Family Leave law for the purpose of bonding with a new child. The new law requires that employers make up the difference between the benefit provided by the California Paid Family Leave law and 100% of the employee’s normal gross weekly wage.