This 80 hours is in addition to the paid sick leave that an employee is already entitled to under the Healthy Workplaces, Healthy Families Act of 2014. Now, public and private California employers with more than 25 employees nationwide are required to provide employees up to 80 hours of COVID-19 related supplemental paid sick leave. This new legislation encompasses far more employers than the previous executive order and legislation. SB 95 Expands the Amount of Covered Employers and Employees SB 95 builds upon the Executive Order and AB 1867, and retroactively expands the pool of eligible employees and eligible reasons for paid sick leave related to COVID-19 back to January 1, 2021. AB 1867 included a sunset provision and that legislation expired on December 31, 2020. Notably, the Legislature did not limit AB 1867 to food sector workers. Following the Governor’s lead, the California Legislature then enacted Assembly Bill 1867 in order to expand the requirement to provide supplemental paid sick leave to all businesses that employed 500 or more employees. Last year, prior to the enactment of SB 95, Governor Newsom issued an Executive Order targeted solely at food sector workers that required employers to provide supplemental paid sick leave to those employees. Therefore, every employer in California should review SB 95 carefully.
SB 95 dramatically expands the number of employees eligible for COVID-19 paid sick leave, expands the reasons an employee may take paid sick leave, and applies retroactively to January 1, 2021, which will require some employers who previously granted employees unpaid leave for COVID-19 related reasons to retroactively compensate those employees.
The bill, which was approved by the legislature on March 18, 2021, and signed by Governor Gavin Newsom on March 19, 2021, creates California Labor Code Sections 248.2 and 248.3. Beginning on March 29, 2021, Senate Bill 95 will place additional requirements on employers to provide supplemental paid sick leave to employees impacted by COVID-19.