Paid Sick Leave in Massachusetts

Beginning July 1, 2015, employers will be required to provide 40 hours of paid sick leave in Massachusetts to employees annually. This new requirement, which is a result of the passage of the “Earned Sick Time for Employees” ballot question in the most recent general election, will make Massachusetts one of three states (along with California and Connecticut) to require paid sick leave on a statewide level.

Does this apply to household employers?
As far as paid sick leave, the new law will not likely affect household employers. Employers with ten or fewer employees (including temporary and part-time workers) will be required to provide sick leave, but may provide it on an unpaid basis. Only employers with 11 or more employees must provide paid sick leave. Employees will be eligible to use accrued sick leave once they have been employed for 90 days.

Accrual
Employees will begin to accrue sick leave on the later of their date of hire or July 1, 2015 at a rate of one hour of sick leave for every 30 hours worked. For exempt employees, a workweek will be considered to be the lesser of 40 hours or the actual normal workweek. Employers may cap the accrual of sick leave at 40 hours but must allow employees to roll over 40 hours of sick leave to the next calendar year. Accrued sick time is not required to be paid out at termination unless it is part of a combined paid time off (PTO) plan.

Use
Employees may use sick leave to:

1. care for the employee’s child, spouse, parent, or parent of a spouse, who is suffering from a physical or mental illness, injury, or medical condition that requires home care, professional medical diagnosis or care, or preventative medical care;
2. care for the employee’s own physical or mental illness, injury, or medical condition that requires home care, professional medical diagnosis or care, or preventative medical care;
3. attend the employee’s routine medical appointment or a routine medical appointment for the employee’s child, spouse, parent, or parent of spouse; or
4. address the psychological, physical or legal effects of domestic violence.

Employees are required to make a “good faith effort” to provide advanced notice of the leave. A note from a medical provider may be required if more than 24 consecutive working hours are taken as sick leave. Employers may not ask for the note to contain details of the reason for leave.

Compliance Requirements
Employers will need to post a multilingual notice about the new sick leave law and provide copies to employees. This notice will be prepared by the State Attorney General prior to the law’s effective date. Sick leave accrual and usage records will need to be maintained by the employer and kept for at least two years.

The law forbids employers from interfering with or retaliating against an employee using sick leave. This includes prohibiting employers from taking disciplinary action or negative employment action for sick leave use, requiring employees to find coverage for their missed hours, and forcing an employee to make up hours taken as sick leave.

There are several details that will be important in implementing sick leave that we do not yet know. For example, the law does not detail how employers should go about counting employees to determine if they will need to provide the leave on a paid basis. It is also unclear whether employees provided by a staffing agency will be included in the count, and when in a month or year an employer should make the count. For these and other details, we will be watching for additional guidance in the coming months.

Please contact GTM’s Household Employment Experts at (888) 432-7972 with any questions you may have.