Two major paid leave proposals have been defeated in California, preventing additional burdens from being placed on employers within the state. As the California 2020 state legislative session approaches an accelerated adjournment at the end of August, state legislators have opted to abandon several proposals addressing “supplemental” or “emergency” paid leave in favor of more politically feasible and expedient policies in response to the COVID-19 public health crisis.
Specifically, two bills aimed at expanding California’s paid sick leave and paid family leave requirements, SB 729 and AB 3216, were completely gutted by lawmakers and rewritten to address and pursue different policy areas in the short term. While these rewritten bills were the most sweeping and onerous paid leave proposals being considered in California this year, there are paid leave bills still being discussed by state lawmakers, namely SB 1383, that ERIC is continuing to push back on.
SB 729 was originally drafted to codify and extend provisions of California Executive Order N-51-20, which required food industry employers to provide their employees with 80 hours of emergency paid sick leave to use in circumstances arising from COVID-19 in addition to other paid sick leave already offered by the employer. ERIC strongly urged legislators to oppose the bill, as it would have created redundant paid leave benefits already provided by state and federal law as well as placed substantial cost burdens on employers by not providing state paid leave tax credits. Following our efforts to prevent this unfunded mandate, the bill was entirely rewritten to address civil suits involving remote employee meal and rest breaks.
AB 3216 originally proposed a multifaceted approach to COVID-19 using a combination of existing paid leave benefit sources and new paid leave mandates. Following pushback from ERIC and the California business community, the bill was scrapped and rewritten to address information that must be provided to workers that are laid-off as a result of a public health emergency. The original bill proposed to:
- Expand the California Family Rights Act (CFRA) to include a public health emergency as a qualifying circumstance to take unpaid, job-protected family and medical leave
- Expand California paid sick leave requirements to include a public health emergency as a qualifying circumstance to take existing paid sick leave
- Require employers in California to provide 56 hours of additional “emergency” paid sick leave to use during a public health emergency
These onerous requirements would have made it much more difficult for employers to operate in California during this pandemic.
SB 1383 is still under consideration by California lawmakers and proposes to change several standards and definitions under the CFRA to expand access to unpaid, job-protected family and medical leave. ERIC’s primary focus is on the proposed expansion of the CFRA definition of “family member” to include an employee’s domestic partner, sibling, grandchild, grandparent, or parent-in-law. California paid family leave does not currently grant job protection to eligible employees while unpaid family leave under the CFRA, which is supposed to be taken concurrently and provide the job protection, has narrower eligibility standards. This bill aims to bring these standards in line with one another and ensure that employees eligible for California paid family leave also have job protection under the CFRA.
While the bill does seek to consolidate some existing sources of leave within the state, ERIC has called on lawmakers to oppose the bill, as it would deviate from federal FMLA standards and further complicate the patchwork of state paid leave laws.
Article by Dillon Clair, Retirement and Compensation Policy Associate