On February 9, 2022, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law Senate Bill 114, which reestablishes the state’s COVID-19 supplemental paid sick leave requirements. Employers will not be able to simply dust off their 2021 policies and reimplement them, however, because the 2022 law contains some important changes from prior laws.
Continue Reading California Enacts COVID-19 Supplemental Paid Sick Leave For 2022

Employers with more than 25 employees must provide COVID-19 supplemental paid sick leave to their California employees under a recent law signed by the Governor.  This new law is broader than California’s prior COVID-19 paid sick leave law and, unlike the prior law, also covers employees who telework. The new sick leave entitlement is retroactive to January 1, 2021 and extends until September 30, 2021. 
Continue Reading California Passes New COVID-19 Sick Leave Requirements for 2021

On August 1, 2019, Dallas joined a host of states, cities and counties across the country when it implemented the City of Dallas’s Paid Sick Leave Ordinance No. 31181. Under the Ordinance, employers were required to provide paid sick leave to all full-time and part-time employees. While legal challenges effectively stopped the enactment of other cities’ ordinances, the Dallas Sick Leave Ordinance remained unchallenged – until recently, that is. 
Continue Reading Texas Federal Court Rules Dallas’s Paid Sick Leave Ordinance Unconstitutional

The Department of Labor released guidance Tuesday regarding the implementation of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, including details on how employers can determine whether they are covered by the Act.
Continue Reading DOL Explains 500-Employee Threshold, Provides Other Guidance on Coronavirus Response Act

The House amended its Coronavirus Response Bill late on March 16, 2020 and sent it on to the Senate.

Paid Sick Leave Changes

 The sick leave provisions of the bill remained largely intact, and would entitle employees of employers with fewer than 500 employees to take up to 80 hours of paid sick leave for coronavirus-related reasons, including required quarantining, caring for family members with the illness, or for emergency school closings.  To review our initial summary of the bill, which includes discussion of portions of the bill that were unaffected by the technical amendments, click here.  The amendments include a $511 daily cap for leave benefits for employees with their own personal coronavirus-related medical conditions, and a $200 cap for employees caring for others with such symptoms or for school closings.

Importantly, the sick leave amendments also allow the Secretary of Labor to grant exemptions to employers where the secretary determines that imposition of the paid sick leave requirements would “jeopardize the viability of the business as a going concern.”  It also allows healthcare and emergency response employers to apply for exemptions from the Secretary of Labor so that the law would not apply to their employees.Continue Reading UPDATE: House Amends Coronavirus Response Bill

In the early morning hours of March 14, 2020, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill to address concerns related to the spread of COVID-19.  The Senate is expected to consider the Bill shortly, and according to media reports, the Bill has the Trump Administration’s support.  Our summary highlights provisions of the Bill related to leave. 
Continue Reading Coronavirus Response Bill Passes House, Would Provide Paid Leave, Expand FMLA for Certain Employees

Virginia’s 2020 legislative session is not scheduled to wrap-up until March. But Virginia employers need to pay attention now to several game-changing bills moving through the legislative process and expected to be signed into law this spring.  The Hunton government relations team, working with several lobbying clients, has already helped defeat several of these measures including a proposed repeal of Virginia’s right to work statute.  But others are expected to become law, and could dramatically increase the volume of employment litigation in Virginia.  Employers are therefore well advised to begin planning for these changes now.
Continue Reading Attention Virginia Employers: New Legislation You Need to Know About