Senate Approves Fixes to Paid Sick Leave Law

The state Senate this week unanimously approved a bipartisan bill offering commonsense changes to the state’s mandatory paid sick leave law. 

SB 1007 helps clear up many of the uncertainties Connecticut employers have run into trying to comply with the mandate since it came into law in 2011. 

To address those concerns, the measure includes changes that will:

• Allow employers the flexibility to administer paid sick leave using the same calendar—fiscal or other 365-day period (such as from the employee’s date of hire)—that they use to administer other employee benefits
• Close a technical loophole to make all manufacturers exempt from the law, as was originally intended  
• Provide a way to account for seasonal employment fluctuations that temporarily push employers over the law’s 50-employee threshold
• Clarify that employees cannot use “intermittent” periods of paid sick leave that would result in disrupting work shifts. (For example, preventing an ambulance driver from taking paid sick leave midway through a shift when her or she may be needed at an emergency.) 
• Clarify that employees may accumulate a total of five “normal” (typically 8-hour) days in paid sick leave per year      

Prior to the Senate vote, the bill also was unanimously approved by both the Commerce and Labor committees 

The business community urges the House to approve SB 1007 and help employers ensure proper compliance with the paid sick leave law.

 For more information, contact CBIA’s Eric Gjede at 860.244.1931 or eric.gjede@cbia.com.