What the F..MLA!
The Emergency Family and Medical Leave Expansion Act and the Emergency Paid Sick Leave Act are the two newest employment laws affecting companies as a result of the corona-virus pandemic.
These new laws impact your company and become effective April 2nd, 2020.
Your company will be required to provide paid leave to individual employees impacted by COVID-19.
This applies to employers with fewer than 500 employees and government employers. Emergency Family and Medical Leave Expansion Act If you have employees who have been employed for at least 30 calendar days, they have the right to take up to 12 weeks of job-protected leave for their own illness or another family member as the primary caregiver under the FMLA. The former FMLA law stated that the employee must have worked for at least 12 months and worked at least 1,250 hours to be eligible.
If the employee is unable to work or telework due to a need for leave to care for the employee’s son or daughter under 18 years of age, or
If the employee child’s school or place of care are closed or if the child care provider is unavailable due to a COVID-19 emergency declared by a Federal, State, or local authority.
The right to take this leave expires on December 31st, 2020. The good news is that companies can receive a tax credit should this become the case in your organization. You will want to consult with your tax attorney or consultant once the credit rules are developed further.
The first ten days of leave provided under the FMLA Expansion Act are unpaid. Employees may elect to substitute paid leave for unpaid leave or allow employees to use other allowances such as vacation time to be used to supplement the first ten days. This can become confusing because the Emergency Paid Sick Leave Act below gives employees two weeks paid sick time due to Covid-19.
After the initial ten-day period, leave is to be paid at two-thirds of the employee’s regular rate of pay for the number of hours that the employee otherwise would have been regularly scheduled to work. If the standard schedule for the employee is forty hours, plus mandatory overtime of ten hours per week, then the two-thirds rule applies to total hours “normally scheduled.”
There is a per day and aggregate cap for each employee, wages are capped at $200 per day and $10,000 in the aggregate.
Emergency Paid Sick Leave Act The Emergency Paid Sick Leave Act states that employers with fewer than 500 employees and government employers to provide full-time employees 80 hours of paid sick time if the employee is unable to work or telework for the following reasons.
The employee that is experiencing symptoms of COVID-19 and is seeking a medical diagnosis.
The employee is subject to a Federal, State, or local quarantine or isolation order related to COVID-19;
The employee has been advised to self-quarantine by a health care provider due to the concerns associated with COVID-19; or
In addition, full-time employees must be paid at 2/3 the regular rate if the employee becomes unable to work or telework for the following reasons:
The employee is caring for an individual who is subject to the isolation orders above.
The employee is caring for their son or daughter if the school or place of care of the child has been closed or the child care provider is unavailable, due to COVID-19 precautions; or
The employee is experiencing any other substantially similar condition specified by the Secretary of Health & Human Services in consultation with the Secretary of Treasury and the Secretary of Labor.
Part-time employees are also entitled to the above paid sick time, based on the number of hours that the employee would otherwise be “normally scheduled” to work in a two-week period. Employees are immediately eligible for paid sick time, regardless of how long they have been employed.
Please reference these links for more information. COVID-19 and the Family and Medical Leave Act Questions and Answers https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fmla/pandemic Families First Coronavirus Response Act: Employee Paid Leave Rights https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/pandemic/ffcra-employee-paid-leave
Posted byArizona HR Professionals LLCMarch 25, 2020Posted inHuman Resources, UncategorizedTags:#covidFMLA #FMLA #ExpandedFMLA #EmergecyFMLA #SickLeave #CoronaVirus #EmergencyPaidSickLeaveAct #EmergencyFamilyAndMedicalLeaveExpansionActFMLAExpansion, Arizona HR Consultant, Arizona HR Professionals, Arizona human resources, ArizonaHR, AZ recruiting, azhrpro, Corona Leave, Corona Paid Sick Leave, CoronaPaidSickLeave, Coronavirus, COVID-19, EmergencyPaidSickLeaveAct, Expanded FMLA, ExpandedFMLA, FMLA, FMLA Leave, HR Professionals Arizona, Phoenix HR Consultant, Sick Leave