Starting on August 7, 2023, Colorado employees will be able to use paid sick leave for additional reasons under the Healthy Families and Workplaces Act (HFWA). Governor Jared Polis signed Senate Bill 23-017 into law on June 2, 2023, and it is expected to become effective on August 7, 2023.

Previously, the HFWA permitted employees to use up to 48 hours of paid sick leave per year for reasons related to an employee’s or an employee’s family member’s illness, injury or health condition, to obtain services related to being a victim of domestic abuse, sexual assault, or harassment or if the employee’s place of business or the employee’s child’s school or place of care closed due to a public health emergency. Starting August 7, 2023, Colorado employees can use paid sick for the following additional reasons:

1. To grieve, attend funeral services or a memorial, or deal with financial and legal matters that arise after the death of a family member;

2. To care for a family member whose school or place of care has been closed due to inclement weather, loss of power, loss of heating, loss of water, or other unexpected occurrence or event that results in the closure of the family member’s school or place of care; or

3. The employee needs to evacuate the employee’s place of residence due to inclement weather, loss of power, loss of heating, loss of water, or other unexpected occurrence or event that results in the need to evacuate the employee’s residence.

Employers will need to notify employees of their right to use paid sick leave under these additional circumstances.  Employers should update their policies and post the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment updated poster.

*                           *                           *                           *

Supplemental paid leave is no longer available for COVID public health emergency reasons.

During the COVID-19 public health emergency, employees could receive up to 80 hours of supplemental paid leave for related reasons, such as the employee’s or a family member’s need to obtain medical services or isolate due to the public health emergency, or if the employee’s or a family member’s place of business closed or the employee’s child’s school or place of care closed due to the public health emergency. The federal public health emergency declaration related to COVID-19 ended on May 11, 2023, and Colorado’s COVID-19 Disaster Recovery Order expired on May 5, 2023. Since there is currently no public health emergency declaration in effect, Colorado employees are not entitled to supplemental paid leave related to a public health emergency as of June 8, 2023.

Jackson Lewis attorneys are available to assist employers in updating their leave policies and administering their leave programs to comply with the myriad of state laws.  Please contact your Jackson Lewis lawyer with any questions.

Beginning May 1, 2026, Maine’s new paid family leave law will allow Maine employees up to 12 weeks of family and medical leave benefits over a one-year period.

Benefits will be financed by a mandatory “premium” based on employee wages of up to 1%, to be split evenly between employee and employer, with each bearing a maximum burden of 0.5% of weekly wages as a premium. Maine employers with fewer than 15 employees will not be subject to the payment of the employer’s portion of the premium, though they will still be obliged to collect and remit the employee portion. While coverage is delayed until the May 1, 2026, start date, Maine employers and employees will begin paying the 1% premium beginning on January 1, 2025.

The program will be administered by the Maine Department of Labor and will cover virtually all employees in Maine, including public employees except for employees of the federal government. Self-employed Mainers will have the option of voluntarily participating in the program, as will tribal governments.

Learn more here.

Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont has signed a new law that will expand the circumstances in which service workers in Connecticut can use state-mandated paid sick leave. The new law goes into effect October 1, 2023.

Since its original passage in 2012, the Connecticut Paid Sick Leave Law has provided a defined set of “service workers” with certain leave entitlements, including paid sick leave accrual at a rate of one hour for every 40 hours worked, up to a maximum accrual of 40 hours per year. The law also required that service workers be permitted to roll over at least 40 hours of accrued, unused paid sick leave per calendar year.

Learn more here.

In a year in which we saw a record number of religious accommodation charges and lawsuits, the Supreme Court has “clarified” the religious accommodation standard that employers and the EEOC have relied upon for more than 46 years.   

In Groff v. DeJoy, a former United States Postal Service (USPS) mail carrier, Gerald Groff claimed that he was unlawfully denied his requested religious accommodation to not work Sundays.  (Some of us remember the days when there was no mail or deliveries on Sunday). The USPS tried to find other carriers to cover Groff’s Sunday shifts, but because of a shortage of rural carriers, it often failed. Groff requested that the USPS exempt him from Sunday work, but the USPS declined, stating that his requested accommodation would lead to undue hardship for the USPS. The Third Circuit majority agreed concluding that exempting Groff from working on Sundays would burden his coworkers, disrupt the workplace and workflow, diminish morale, and damage the USPS’s operations.

Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, employers are required to reasonably accommodate employees whose sincerely held religious beliefs or observances conflict with work requirements, unless doing so would create an undue hardship for the employer.  With no statutory definition of “undue hardship”, courts have relied on the Supreme Court’s decision in TWA v. Hardison, 432 U.S. 63 (1977), for the last 46 years to determine the parameters of the term.  In Hardison, the Court statedthat requiring an employer “to bear more than a de minimis cost in order to give [an employee] Saturdays off is an undue hardship.”  

In Groff, a unanimous opinion authored by Justice Alito, the Court changed the test.  According to the Court, it now “understands Hardison to mean that ‘undue hardship’ is shown when a burden is substantial in the overall context of an employer’s business.”  This is a significant change from what the EEOC and courts have stated, and employers have relied upon for years. The Court declined to incorporate the undue hardship test under the Americans with Disabilities Act which requires significant difficulty and expense.   

The Court also declined to determine what facts would meet this new test and remanded the case back to the lower court to decide, setting up what will likely be years of legal battles with courts attempting to apply this new standard.  But the Court did opine that “A good deal of the EEOC’s guidance in this area is sensible and will, in all likelihood, be unaffected by the Court’s clarifying decision.”  According to the Court, “Courts must apply the test to take into account all relevant factors in the case at hand, including the particular accommodations at issue and their practical impact in light of the nature, size, and operating cost of an employer.” 

Jackson Lewis attorneys are available to answer questions about the impact of the Court’s decision on employers and to help design and deliver effective training on the accommodation process, update accommodation, anti-harassment, and discrimination policies, and provide advice and counsel on how to navigate potential changes in internal religious accommodation policies.

In 2018, the Michigan legislature adopted, and then within the same legislative session amended, two voter-approved ballot initiatives, one to significantly raised Michigan’s minimum wage and the other to expand employer obligations to provide paid sick leave. In 2022, the Michigan Court of Claims held that the legislature’s actions violated the Michigan Constitution and ordered reinstatement of the ballot initiatives as originally presented.

However, in January 2023, prior to the ordered reinstatement date, the Michigan Court of Appeals reversed that decision, concluding that the legislature did in fact possess such authority. The Michigan Supreme Court has now agreed to hear the matter and decide which version of the law is valid and, in doing so, whether the legislature has the authority under the Michigan Constitution to adopt and amend voter-approved ballot initiatives within the same legislative session. Mothering Justice et al. v. Attorney General and State of Michigan, Appeal No. 165325 (Mich. June 21, 2023).

Find more here.

The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) goes into effect on June 27, 2023. The PWFA requires employers to post a notice describing the various protections under the new law.  On June 27th, employers should remove their old EEOC “Know Your Rights” posters and replace them with the updated version found here. Please reach out to the Jackson Lewis attorney with whom you regularly work if you need help training your managers and updating your policies and forms to comply with the PWFA.

The COVID-19 State of Emergency may be over but many employers are still feeling the economic effects of the pandemic.  In 2022, when COVID-19 Supplemental Paid Sick Leave (SPSL) was extended for the final time, the legislation also provided for a grant program for certain businesses to offset the costs of providing SPSL.

Find out more here.

In anticipation of Paid Leave Oregon, a new paid family leave benefit for Oregon employees, the Oregon legislature recently passed a bill that creates new entitlements for Oregon employees and aligns existing law with the forthcoming paid leave benefit.  Senate Bill 999 (2023) revises the Oregon Family Leave Act (OFLA) in two significant ways.  First, the amendments expand the definition of a covered family member to include siblings and stepsiblings, as well as their respective spouse or domestic partner, and any individual with whom an employee has a “close association” that is “equivalent to a family relationship.”  The statutory updates align OFLA entitlements with corresponding paid leave benefits available under Paid Leave Oregon after September 3, 2023, ensuring that OFLA and Paid Leave Oregon will run concurrently in most circumstances.

Second, the amendments provide that employers may define the “leave year” for OFLA purposes as “beginning on the Sunday immediately preceding the date on which family leave commences.”  Under Paid Leave Oregon, the “benefit year” is to be determined rolling forward– beginning on the Sunday immediately preceding the date on which paid benefits commence.  The amendments thus, once again, reflect an effort to maximize the time periods during which OFLA and Paid Leave Oregon will run concurrently.  Under the bill, while employers may continue to define the OFLA leave year as any consecutive 12-month period, employers are required to migrate to a rolling-forward leave year no later than July 1, 2024.

The expanded OFLA entitlements are scheduled to become effective on September 3, 2023, the same day Paid Leave Oregon benefits become available.  The amendments mandating a rolling-forward leave year become effective on July 1, 2024.  In light of the statutory revisions, Oregon employers should review their leave policies to ensure compliance with the new rules.  Employers that are also covered by the federal Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) will want to consider whether changes to FMLA policies are warranted.

If you have any questions regarding this or other legislation affecting the workplace, please reach out to any Jackson Lewis attorney.

New Florida legislation seeks to protect individuals from discrimination “based on health care choices” and bars COVID-19 mandates. The new law took effect on June 1, 2023. 

The law’s restrictions on vaccine mandates and facial coverings also apply in educational settings, in addition to employers and businesses. Florida schools, both public and private, from preschool through college cannot mandate the COVID-19 vaccine, testing, or face masks or other facial coverings.

Learn more here.