On September 10, 2014, Governor Jerry Brown signed into law AB 1522, known as the “Healthy Workplaces, Healthy Families Act of 2014.” This bill requires California employers, large and small, to provide paid sick leave for their employees. California and Connecticut are the only states in the country thus far to mandate paid sick leave. The law goes into effect on July 1, 2015.

Coverage: Unlike certain other employment laws that are limited to larger employers, there is no minimum number of employees required to trigger coverage under AB 1522. The law broadly extends paid sick leave to most employees, with limited exceptions for certain employees covered by collective bargaining agreements, to providers of in-home supportive services, and to certain employees of air carriers. The exclusion for employees covered by collective bargaining agreements applies if the agreement expressly provides for the wages, hours of work, and working conditions of employees, and expressly provides for 1) paid sick days or a paid leave or paid time off policy that permits the use of sick days for those employees; 2) final and binding arbitration of disputes concerning the application of its paid sick days provisions; 3) premium wage rates for all overtime hours worked; and 4) regular hourly rate of pay of not less than 30% more than the state minimum wage rate. A separate exclusion also applies to employees in the construction industry covered by a collective bargaining agreement if the agreement includes specified provisions and was entered into before January 1, 2015 or expressly waives the requirements of AB 1522. Continue Reading California Passes Paid Sick Leave Law and Other Recent Legislation