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Some states have statutes that affect an employee’s right to leave for various reasons, such as pregnancy, workers' compensation, and disability. California laws include leave provisions under the California Family Rights Act, the Paid Family Leave law, paid sick leave provisions, the Pregnancy Disability Leave provisions, and others.
Unlike the federal FMLA, California’s Family Rights Act (CFRA) applies to all public employers and private employers with 5 or more employees in the United States.
To be eligible for CFRA leave, an employee must:
Like FMLA, eligible employees are entitled to 12 weeks of family leave in a 12-month period under CFRA. If CFRA is running concurrently with FMLA, you may use any method indicated under the FMLA to determine the 12-month period for both FMLA and CFRA, as long as you apply it consistently and uniformly to all employees.
The CFRA generally provides leave for the following reasons:
As of 1/1/23, employees may take CFRA leave to care for a "designated person," who is any individual related by blood or whose association with the employee is the equivalent of a family relationship. Employees may identify a designated person at the time leave is requested. Employers may limit an employee to one designated person per 12-month period.
Parents who both work for an employer may each take 12 weeks of CFRA leave to bond with their child.
Under California law, a medical certification supporting the need for leave may not include a diagnosis, unlike a certification under federal FMLA. If leave qualifies under both laws, you should use a certification that does not ask for a diagnosis.
Like FMLA, an employer must continue to provide health benefits under any group health plan for the first 12 weeks of an employee’s CFRA leave.
FMLA states that an employee returning from leave is entitled to his or her former job or an equivalent job. California also requires that an employee returning from leave is entitled to the same or a comparable position that offers virtually identical pay, benefits, duties, working conditions, etc.
Employers covered under both CFRA and FMLA must, therefore, allow an employee on leave to return to his or her former job, if that job still exists.
An employee must provide at least verbal notice sufficient to make the employer aware the employee needs CFRA-qualifying leave. The notice must state the reason for the leave and when it will begin and end. An employer may require 30 days’ advance notice before CFRA leave begins if the need for leave is foreseeable unless that is not possible due to other circumstances, such as a medical emergency.
The employer must respond to a leave request within 10 calendar days.
Effective January 1, 2023, employers with five or more employees must give employees who have worked at least 30 days are up to five days of bereavement leave. Employees may take the bereavement leave for the death of a spouse, child, parent, sibling, grandparent, grandchild, domestic partner, or parent-in-law.
The leave does not need to be continuous; it may be taken intermittently, but it must be completed within three months of the date of death of the family member. The leave is in addition to CFRA leave.
The bereavement leave may be unpaid, but employees may use vacation, personal leave, accrued and available sick leave, or compensatory time off that is otherwise available.
If you have a leave policy that provides for less than five days of paid bereavement leave, employees are entitled to no less than a total of five days of bereavement leave, consisting of the number of days of paid leave under the existing policy, and the remainder of days of leave may be unpaid.
You may require employees to provide documentation of the death of the family member, which could include a death certificate, a published obituary, or written verification of death, burial, or memorial services from a mortuary, funeral home, burial society, crematorium, religious institution, or governmental agency. Employees are to provide this within 30 days of the first day of the leave.
In addition to the CFRA, California has the Paid Family Leave (PFL) law that entitles employees who paid into the State Disability Insurance Program to up to eight weeks of partial pay per year while taking time off from work to bond with a new minor child by birth, adoption, or foster care; or to care for a seriously ill family member. Family members include children, spouses, domestic partners, parents, parents-in-law, grandparents, grandchildren, and siblings.
Employees may also receive PFL benefits for leave taken for a qualifying exigency related to a “qualifying military event” arising out of the overseas military deployment of the employee’s family member. This would be for the covered active duty or call to covered active duty of the employee’s spouse, domestic partner, child, or parent in the Armed Forces of the U. S.
Employees are eligible to receive family temporary disability insurance benefits equal to 1/7 of their weekly benefit amount for each full day they are unable to work. The maximum payment is eight times the employee’s weekly benefit amount.
The PFL does not generally provide for job-protection or reinstatement rights; rather, it provides for income replacement while an employee is on leave.
The Governor was expected to submit a proposal extending PFL to six months by 2022 as well as adding other benefits, for parents to care for and bond with their newborn or newly adopted child. This proposal was to assess and address job protections for employees, wage replacement rates up to 90 percent for low wage workers and provide a plan to implement and fund expanded paid family leave benefits. (SB 83)
The PFL, however, has not yet been expanded to six months.
California also has the Pregnancy Disability Leave (PDL) law.
Employers with five or more employees are covered by the PDL.
Employees need not meet any eligibilty criteria; they simply must need time off for a disability related to pregnancy, childbirth, or a related medical condition.
Employees may take up to four months (17.3 weeks or 693 hours) of unpaid, job-protected leave for such a disability. If you provide more than four months of leave for other types of temporary disability, you must provide the same amount of leave to employees who are disabled by pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions.
A pregnancy-related disability can include prenatal or postnatal care, severe morning sickness, doctor-ordered bed rest, childbirth and recovery, loss or end of pregnancy, and so on.
You may require employees to use accrued sick leave while on unpaid PDL. You may not, however, require employees to use vacation or other accrued time off during PDL. Employees may choose to use vacation or other accrued time off. Employees may also qualify for state SDI wage remplacement.
Employees are to provide at least 30 days’ notice if possible. You may require medical certification supporting the need for PDL.
Employees may take PDL intermittently, on a reduced schedule, or continuously, as needed. PDL may be taken before and after birth for any time the employee is unable to work.
You must provide group healthcare coverage while an employee is on pregnancy disability leave.
Employees are to be returned to their same position. In some situations, employees may be reinstated to a comparable position.
PDL may not be used concurrently with CFRA, as the CFRA does not include pregnancy as a serious health condition. PDL may, however, be used concurrently with FMLA. Therefore, an employee could take four months of PDL while disabled followed by 12 weeks of CFRA for bonding.
You must post a notice of PDL rights in the workplace, and if you have employee handbooks, PDL information must be included there, as well.
California employers must provide paid sick leave (PSL) per the Healthy Workplace, Healthy Families Act of 2014 (AB 1522, Chapter 317; SB616 enacted 10/4/2023).
An employee who works in California for 30 days or more within a year from the beginning of employment is entitled to paid sick days.
Employees begin to accrue paid sick leave upon hire. They accrue paid sick days at the rate of not less than one hour per every 30 hours worked. Employees may use paid sick days beginning on the 90th day of employment.
In some situations, part time employees might not accrue least 24 hours of PSL by their 120th day of employment, or 40 hours by their 200th day of employment. Employers may, however, use a 1:30 PSL accrual method, regardless of the 120/200 day benchmarks.
Effective until January 1, 2024, accrued but unused sick days carry over to the following year of employment, but you may cap an employee’s use of paid sick days to 24 hours or three days in each year of employment. The law also allows you to limit an employee’s total accrued paid sick leave to no more than 48 hours or six days.
Effective January 1, 2024, accrued but unused sick days carry over to the following year of employment, but you may cap an employee’s use of paid sick days to 40 hours or five days in each year of employment. Employees are eligible to earn the 40 hours/5 days within six months of employment. The law also allows you to limit an employee’s total accrued paid sick leave to no more than 80 hours or ten days.
Employees are to provide notice of the need for paid sick leave, but this may be verbal or in writing. The law does not include provisions for you to request documentation supporting the need for paid sick leave.
You may set a reasonable minimum increment of paid sick leave, not to exceed two hours.
The rate of pay is to be the employee’s hourly wage. If the employee had different rates in the 90 days before taking leave, the rate of pay is to be calculated by dividing the employee’s total wages, not including overtime premium pay, by the employee’s total hours worked in the full pay period of the prior 90 days.
Employees may take paid sick leave for the following reasons:
Family members include a child, spouse, registered domestic partner, grandparent, grandchild, and sibling.
As of January 1, 2023, family members include a designated person, which is a person identified by the employee at the time leave is requested. Employers may limit an employee to one designated person per 12-month period for paid sick days.
You are not required to pay out unused paid sick leave upon termination of employment. If, however, an employee separates from employment and is rehired within one year, previously accrued and unused paid sick days must be reinstated upon rehire.
If you already give employees paid sick days that provide at least the same level of benefit than does the Healthy Workplace, Healthy Families Act, you need not provide more.
You must post a notice describing the provisions and give written notice to new hires certain information including paid sick leave rights. You must also provide an employee with written notices indicating the amount of paid sick leave available on either the employee’s itemized wage statement or in a separate writing provided on the designated pay date.
Leave under this law does not run concurrent with leave under other laws.
You must retain related records, such as the hours worked and paid sick days accrued and used by an employee, for at least three years.
Finally, a “paid time off” (PTO) plan or policy does not allow an employer to circumvent the law with respect to vacations. Where an employer replaces separate arrangements for vacation and sick leave with a program granting employees a certain number of “paid days off” each year that can be used for any purpose, including vacation and sick leave, employees have an absolute right to take these days off. The California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement (DLSE) takes the position that such a program is subject to the same rules as other vacation policies. Thus, for example, the “paid time off” is earned on a day-by-day basis, vested paid time off days cannot be forfeited, the number of earned and accrued paid time off days can be capped, and if an employee has earned and accrued paid time off days that have not be used at the time the employment relationship ends, the employee must be paid for these days.
Effective January 1, 2024, employers with five or more employees are covered by this provision. Also covered are the state and any political or civil subdivision of the state, including, but not limited to, cities and counties, regardless of how many employees they have.
Employees are eligible to take the leave if they have been employed by the employer for at least 30 days before leave is to begin.
Eligible employees are entitled to take up to five days of unpaid leave. Employees may, however, use certain other leave balances otherwise available to the employee, including vacation, personal leave, accrued and available sick leave, or compensatory time off that is otherwise available to them.
Eligible employees may take the leave for a reproduction loss event, which is the day or, for a multiple-day event, the final day of a failed adoption, failed surrogacy, miscarriage, stillbirth, or an unsuccessful assisted reproduction. These terms includes the following:
Employers must allow the days an employee takes for reproductive loss leave to be nonconsecutive.
If an employee experiences more than one reproductive loss event within a 12-month period, employers are not required to grant a total amount of reproductive loss leave time in excess of 20 days within a 12-month period.
Reproductive loss leave shall be completed within three months of the event.
Reproductive loss leave must be taken pursuant to any existing applicable employer leave policy.
The leave does not run concurrently with other leave. Employees' rights to reproductive loss leave must be construed as a separate and distinct right.
Employees are not required to provide any documentations supporting their request for reproductive loss leave.
Employers may not retaliate against an individual because of either of the following:
Therefore, employers may not take action including, but not limited to:
Employers may not interfere with, restrain, or deny the exercise of, or the attempt to exercise, any right provided under this law.
Employers must maintain any information received as confidential and must not be disclosed except to internal personnel or counsel, as necessary, or as required by law.
Under California law, if an employer provides sick leave for employees, it must permit an employee to use accrued sick leave for certain reasons. The employee is entitled to use not less than the amount of sick leave the employee would accrue in six months, per calendar year. Conditions placed on sick leave usage for use by an employee also applies to sick leave used for other qualifying reasons.
The reasons employees are entitled to use Kin Care mirror those of the Healthy Workplaces, Healthy Families Act (paid sick leave). The term “family member” also reflects the definition under paid sick leave, including children, parents, spouses, registered domestic partners, grandparents, grandchildren, and siblings.
Effective January 1, 2021, employees taking California paid sick leave may designate the leave either for kin care, or for the employee’s own health condition, or for obtaining relief if the employee is a victim of domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking. the Employees have the right to designate sick leave as kin care or not. Therefore, employers are to ask employees how the leave is to be designated.
Under the law, “sick leave” is defined as “accrued increments of compensated leave.” A problem arose for employers who provide an unlimited quantity of paid sick leave. The California Supreme Court ruled that the Kin Care provisions do not apply to paid sick leave policies that provide for an uncapped number of compensated days off. The employer would need to provide an identified quantity of paid sick leave for the law to apply. Employers may still provide unlimited paid sick leave; however, Kin Care wouldn’t apply.
Disability insurance (DI or SDI) provides partial wage replacement to eligible workers who are unable to work because of a disability. “Disability” is defined as any mental or physical illness or injury which prevents employees from performing their regular or customary work. Employees must be unable to do their work for at least eight consecutive days, and must be employed or actively looking for work at the time they become disabled. They also must have earned at least $300 from which SDI deductions were withheld during a previous period, and be under the care and treatment of a licensed doctor or accredited religious practitioner during the first eight days of their disability. Like PFL, employees must apply for benefits.
Employers with 25 or more employees working at the same location must not discriminate against employees who are parents, guardians, stepparents, foster parents, grandparents, or someone who stands in loco parentis of one or more children of the age to attend kindergarten, grades 1 through 12, or a licensed child care provider. These employees may take up to 40 hours of leave each year for the following:
Employees, prior to taking the time off, must give reasonable notice to the employer of the absence.
The Michelle Maykin Memorial Donation Protection Act requires employers with 15 or more employees to allow eligible employees to take paid time off to donate an organ or bone marrow.
To be eligible, employees must have worked at least 90 days for the employer.
For organ donation, employees may take up to 30 days paid leave in a one-year period. Employees may take an additional 30 days unpaid leave in any one-year period.
For bone marrow donation, employees are entitled to paid leave of up to five business days in any one-year period.
The one-year period is measured from the date the leave begins and consists of 12 consecutive months. Leave may be taken in one or more periods; it need not be taken all at once.
Employees must provide written verification that they are a donor and that there is a medical necessity for the donation. Such absence is not considered a break in service for the purpose of the right to salary adjustments, sick leave, vacation, annual leave, or seniority. Group health care coverage is to be continued during such leave.
Employers may require employees to take up to five days of earned but unused sick or vacation leave or paid time off for bone marrow donation and up to two weeks of earned but unused sick or vacation leave or paid time off for organ donation. Leave taken cannot be treated as a break in service in regard to salary adjustments, sick leave, annual leave, seniority, or paid time off.
Group health coverage must be maintained during this type of leave.
Leave for donations must not be counted concurrently with the CFRA or FMLA.
Employers must restore employees to the position held when the leave began or to a position with equivalent seniority, benefits, pay, and other terms and conditions of employment. Employees may bring a civil action to enforce these provisions.
Members of the California Wing of the all-volunteer Civil Air Patrol are entitled to up to ten days per year of unpaid leave when they are called up for an emergency by the U.S. Air Force, the California Emergency Management Agency, or any subdivision of the state with the authority to declare an emergency. Such emergencies are those that involve the saving or protection of life and property.
Covered employers are those with 15 or more employees. Leave under this law must be provided above and beyond leave provided under other laws — Civil Air Patrol leave cannot run concurrent with other leave.
Eligible employees are those who have worked for the employer for at least a 90-day period immediately preceding leave.
Employees are to provide as much notice as possible of the leave, and include the intended dates upon which the leave would begin and end.
Employers may require certification from the proper Civil Air Patrol authority to verify the eligibility of the employee for the leave requested or taken. Leave may be denied if the employee fails to provide the required certification.
Employers cannot require employees to exhaust all accrued paid leave.
Employers and employees may negotiate for the employer to maintain the employee benefits at the expense of the employer during the leave period.
At the end of leave, employees are to be restored to the position they held when leave began or to a position with equivalent seniority status, employee benefits, pay, and other terms and conditions of employment, unless the employee is not restored because of conditions unrelated to the exercise of the leave rights by the employee.
Employers with at least 50 employees must allow employees who perform duties as volunteer firefighters, reserve peace officers, or emergency rescue personnel to take up to 14 days of leave per calendar year. This includes disaster medical response entities sponsored or requested by the state. Employees who are health care providers must notify their employer at the time they become designated as emergency rescue personnel and when they are notified that they will be deployed as a result of that designation. The leave may be used to engage in firefighting, law enforcement, or emergency rescue training.
Employers with 25 or more employees must allow a qualified employee to take up to ten days of unpaid leave during a qualified leave period. Employers must not retaliate against a qualified employee for requesting or taking such leave.
“Qualified employee” means a person who satisfies all of the following:
“Qualified member” means a person who is any of the following:
“Qualified leave period” means the period during which the qualified member is on leave from deployment during a period of military conflict. This reason for leave does not run concurrent with other forms of leave.
All California employers must allow leave to employees:
The term “crime” includes misdemeanors or felony, and it does not matter whether anyone is arrested, prosecuted, or convicted in relation to the crime
Employees may take this leave to attend to any of the following:
Employers are to provide a notice to employees of their domestic violence leave rights. The notice is to be provided upon hire and to other employees upon request. The Labor Commissioner is expected to develop a model notice and make it available to employers. You are not required to use the model notice, but whatever you do use needs to be substantially similar to the model notice.
Employees must provide reasonable advance notice of the intention to take time off, unless the advance notice is not feasible. When an unscheduled absence occurs, employers may not take any action against employees if, within a reasonable time after the absence, employees provide a certification.
Certification must be sufficient in the form of any of the following:
Employers may request recertification of an employee’s status as a victim six months after the date of the previous certification.
Employees may use available vacation, personal leave, or compensatory time off for leave under this law.
All employers are to provide reasonable accommodations for victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking when such a request is for the safety of the victim while at work. Reasonable accommodations may include implementing the following safety measures or procedures:
Employers may not discharge, discriminate, or retaliate against employees who are victims of crime or abuse for taking leave.
Employees are to let employers know of the need for an accommodation because of the employee’s status as a victim. Employees are also to provide, upon request, a written statement certifying that the accommodation is for a purpose under this law. The employer may also request certification from an employee requesting an accommodation demonstrating the employee’s status as a victim.
Employers are to engage in an interactive process with the employee to identify effective reasonable accommodations. Employers are not required to provide an accommodation that poses an undue hardship.
Employees are to notify the employer if they no longer need an accommodation.
In addition to the above requirements, employers with 25 or more employees must provide leave for employees for the following reasons:
Employers must allow an employee who is a victim of a crime, an immediate family member of a victim, a registered domestic partner of a victim, or the child of a registered domestic partner of a victim, job-protected time off to attend judicial proceedings related to that crime.
A victim is someone against whom a violent felony, a serious felony, or a felony proscribing theft or embezzlement has been committed.
The employee must provide a copy of the responsible agency’s notice of each scheduled proceeding, unless advance notice is not feasible. If not feasible to provide advance notice, the employee is to provide, within a reasonable time after the absence, documentation evidencing the judicial proceeding.
Employees may choose to substitute accrued paid time off.
Employers are to keep related records confidential.
Employers may not discharge, discriminate against, or retaliate against an employee who is a victim of specified offenses for taking time off from work to appear in court to be heard at any proceeding including postarrest release decisions, plea, sentencing, postconviction release decision, or in which any right of the victim is at issue.
The protections apply to individuals who have suffered direct or threatened physical, psychological, or financial harm as a result of a commission or attempted commission of a crime or delinquent act. A victim also includes a person’s spouse, parent, child, sibling, or guardian.
The list of crimes includes murder and solicitation of murder; kidnapping; carjacking; rape, stalking, and domestic violence; sex offenses; DUI vehicular manslaughter and other vehicular deaths; child abuse that caused significant harm or death; assault resulting in the death of a child under 8 years old; and the abuse of an elder or dependent adult.
Employees are to provide reasonable advance notice of the intention to take time off, when feasible.
When an unscheduled absence occurs, the employer is prohibited from taking an action against the employee if the employee, within a reasonable time after the absence, provides a certification. Certification may be in the form of the following:
Employees may use available vacation, personal leave, or comp time for time taken off under this law.
California employers with 25 or more employees must reasonably accommodate any employee who wishes to voluntarily enter and participate in an alcohol or drug rehabilitation program, provided that this reasonable accommodation does not impose an undue hardship on the employer.
Not really a leave law, but unpaid time off for rehab can be an accommodation. Other accommodations might include reassignment to a vacant position, adjusted work schedule or breaks, or other reasonable change in employment that will help the purposes of treatment.
Employees have the right to use accrued sick days for the time off for treatment.
While reinstatement is not specifically indicated, employers are prohibited from discriminating against an employee who wishes to voluntarily seek treatment. Employers are not allowed to demote, wrongfully terminate, refuse to rehire, fail to promote, suspend, or in any other way discriminate against the employee for taking leave.
Time off for this reason this could run concurrently with CFRA and/or FMLA if the employee has a serious health condition.
Employers may refuse to hire, or discharge an employee who, because of the employee’s current use of alcohol or drugs, is unable to perform his or her duties, or cannot perform the duties in a manner which would not endanger his or her health or safety or the health or safety of others.
The title refers to a section of the CA Labor Code (LC). The law gives certain public employees up to one year (52 weeks) of paid leave when they are temporarily totally disabled due to a work-related injury or illness.
Employees need not meet any eligibility criteria. The following full time employees are entitled to the leave:
Not included are employees who whose principal duties do not clearly come within the scope of active law enforcement or firefighting and prevention service, such as telephone operators, clerks, stenographers, machinists, mechanics, and so forth. Also, the law does not apply to employees of the City and County of San Francisco.
For peace officers and firefighters, this leave is in addition to CFRA leave.
If an employee recovers from a disability, returns to work, and gets hurt again, a new one-year leave is triggered.
The benefits include not only the employee’s normal salary, but also pension, health insurance, death benefits, and benefits from normal salary deductions.
Department of Fair Employment and Housing
Bakersfield District Office
www.dfeh.ca.gov
Employment Development Department
www.edd.ca.gov
California Family Rights Act (CFRA): California Government Code, Section 12945.2
http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=12945.2.&lawCode=GOV
California Code of Regulations, Title 2, Division 4.1, Chapter 5, Subchapter 2, Article 11
Bereavement leave: California Government Code §12945.7
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=GOV§ionNum=12945.7
Paid Family Leave Law: California Unemployment Insurance Code, Sections 3300 to 3306
California Unemployment Insurance Code, Division 1, Part 2, Chapter 7
Paid sick leave: Labor Code, Section 245 Healthy Workplaces, Healthy Families Act of 2014
Labor Code, Division 2, Part 1, Chapter 1, Section 245
Pregnancy disability leave: Government Code, Section 12945
http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=12945.&lawCode=GOV
California Code of Regulations, Title 2, Division 3, Part 2.8, Chapter 6, §12945
Reproductive loss leave: Governtment Code, Section 12945.6
Sick Leave (Kin Care): California Labor Code, Section 233
http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=233.&lawCode=LAB
Time Off For School Activities: California Labor Code, Section 230.8
http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=230.8.&lawCode=LAB
Civil Air Patrol Employment Protection Act: California Labor Code, Section 1500 to 1507
Michelle Maykin Memorial Donation Protection Act: California Labor Code, Section 1508 to 1513
Family military leave: California Military and Veterans Code, Section 395.10
http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=395.10.&lawCode=MVC
Domestic violence leave: California Labor Code Section 230 and 230.1
http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=230.&lawCode=LAB
Violent crime leave: California Labor Code Section 230.2
http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=230.2.&lawCode=LAB
Court appearances: California Labor Code Section 230.5
http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=230.5.&lawCode=LAB
Alcohol and drug rehab accommodations: California Labor Code Setions 1025 - 1028 (Chapter 3.7)
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=LAB§ionNum=1025
New Parent Leave Act: California Government Code, Section 12945.6
CA Labor Code 4850 City Police and Firemen, Sheriffs, and Others
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=LAB§ionNum=4850
ContactsUS Dept. of Labor, Wage & Hour Division
Regulations
29 CFR Part 825, “The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993”