Skip to main content

New Laws for 2020: Pittsburgh Paid Sick Leave


Beginning March 15th, employers in Pittsburgh will be required to provide their employees with paid sick leave, at a rate of one hour of paid sick leave for every thirty five hours worked (within the geographic scope of the city.)

I suppose this is as good of a time as any to look at the specifics:
  • The employer can "front load" the available paid sick leave at the beginning of the work year or else allow the employee to carry it over up to the applicable accrual cap per employee.
  • Notably, unused paid sick leave does not need to be paid out to the employee if they leave their employment, unless the employee is reinstated within six months.
  • The accrued paid sick leave may be used for a mental or physical illness or injury of the employee or family member and the closure of the employer's place of business (or the employee's child's school) due to a public health emergency.  
  • Employees are to be paid their regular rate for the sick time.  
  • While new employees are not entitled to use the paid sick leave, they are able to do so after 90 days of employment.
  • Employees are not required to find a replacement for their missed time.
  • Perhaps just as important, an employer cannot retaliate against an employee for using their paid sick leave.
  • However, an employer may require the employee to provide verification if the sick leave absence lasts three days or longer.

Now there is an important carve out here for smaller employers in the city:  the requirement to provide paid sick leave for employers with fewer than fifteen employees does not go into effect until March 15, 2021.  While these smaller employers have some breathing room to implement the paid sick leave into their policies...for all other employers in Pittsburgh, March 15th is right around the corner.


For additional information:  https://apps.pittsburghpa.gov/redtail/images/8015_Guidelines_for_Paid_Sick_Days_Act.docx__FINAL_12-16-19.pdf

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

NLRB: Discussion Among Employees About Tip Pooling is Protected Concerted Activity

  This Advice Memorandum from the National Labor Relations Board’s Associate General Counsel, Jayme Sophir, addressed whether employees which discussed and complained about tip pooling at work constituted protected concerted activity. In relevant part, an employer in New York operated a chain of steakhouses.  While tip pooling was in place at these steakhouses, some of the employees objected to it on the grounds that it was not transparent and improperly divided tips among the workers.  Employees were told not to complain or talk to each other about the tip pool and were told that doing so would endanger their jobs.  Despite the employer later attempting to provide some clarity as to how the tips were being divided, rancor still existed among some employees.  At one point, the employees were told by a general manager that some employees that had been talking about the tip pool were “cleared out” and the employer would continue to do so. In the Advice Memorandum,...
Post a Comment
Read more

Utah Non-Compete Bill Falters in House

Last month, a non-compete bill sponsored by Representative Brian Greene (Republican from Pleasant Grove) & up for vote in the Utah House failed to make it through the Legislature.  The bill sought to ban enforcement of non-competes if they came after a worker was already employed, given no compensation (such as a bonus or promotion) for signing the non-compete, and laid off within six months.  However, by a 22 - 49 vote, the bill was resoundingly defeated after some business groups lobbied to kill the non-compete bill.  One group in particular, The Free Enterprise Utah coalition, argued that the Utah State Legislature should hold off on any changes to non compete laws in the state until a survey about non competes was done among Utah businesses.  Representative Greene had countered this claim and argued that a survey was not needed to show that the current non compete laws in the states allowed many businesses, including some small high tech companies i...
Post a Comment
Read more

What I've Been Reading This Week

Recently, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Commissioner, Chai Feldblum, had her re-nomination on the brink, after Utah Republican Senator Mike Lee took steps to block it .  Readers might have heard that late last week, Commissioner Feldblum's re-nomination quietly slipped away and she tweeted out a thank you to supporters and friends, acknowledging that her time at the EEOC was over.  While there has not been much in the way of a further update in regard to that ongoing saga, we wait to see how things will play out at the EEOC, now that it has lost a quorum until additional Commissioners are confirmed by the Senate. For the time being, there are other developments for readers to review this week.  In particular, I call attention to the article on managing a wage & hour audit by the Department of Labor as well as steps an employer can take to better ensure compliance with the ADA. As always, below are a couple articles that caught my eye this week. ...
Post a Comment
Read more