FMLA - Michigan

Paid Medical Leave Act (appealed and voided)

Under the state Paid Medical Leave Act, effective March 2019, employers must provide employees with accrued paid medical leave for qualifying reasons.

Earned Sick Time Act (ESTA, effective February 21, 2025)

NOTE: This was expected to replace the Paid Medical Leave Act (PMLA) effective 2/20/23, as a judicial stay was set to expire on February 19, 2023. On January 26, 2023, however, the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled that the Michigan PMLA, as implemented in March 2019, would remain in place.

This was appealed to the Michigan Supreme Court, which voided the PMLA and ordered the Earned Sick Time Act to be reinstated as originally written effective February 21, 2025.

Covered employers

All employers with one or more employees.

Employee eligibility

No real eligibility criteria; employees’ primary work location must be in MI.

Leave Entitlement

Employees begin accruing leave when the law is effective or upon hire, but employers may have a waiting period of 90 days for usage for new hires. Employees retain all unused paid sick time if rehired within six months.

Employees accrue one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked. Employers should be able to frontload the leave every leave year if all other provisions are met and you use the calendar year.

Small employers (employers with fewer than 10 employees) must provide 40 hours of paid sick leave and 32 hours of unpaid leave per year. Large employers (more than 10 employees) must provide 72 hours of paid sick leave per year.

If employers already provide paid leave that meets all the law’s requirements, they need not provide additional leave. Employers may count other paid time off (e.g., vacation personal, PTO) toward leave entitlements. Be sure to clearly communicate this.

While employers may limit how much leave is used in a year, they may not limit carryover or accrual.

Employers need not pay out any unused paid sick leave at the end of the year or at termination.

Employers may chose any consecutive 12-month period as a leave year.

Reasons for Leave

• The employee’s own condition, including time off for diagnosis or for preventative care.
• To care for a family member's condition, including for diagnosis or for preventative care.
• If the employee or family member is a victim of domestic violence or sexual assault, including for care or counseling, to obtain services from a victim services organization, to relocate due to domestic violence or sexual assault, to obtain legal services, or to participate in any related civil or criminal proceedings.
• For closure of the employee's primary workplace by order of a public official due to a public health emergency.
• For an employee's need to care for a child whose school or place of care has been closed by order of a public official due to a public health emergency;
• If it has been determined by health authorities or a health care provider that the employee's or family member's presence in the community would jeopardize the health of others because of exposure to a communicable disease, whether or not the employee or family member actually contracted the communicable disease.
• Meeting at a child’s school or place of care related to the child’s health or disability or the effects of domestic violence or sexual assault.

Family members include:

• Biological, adopted, or foster children, stepchildren, legal ward, children of domestic partner, or children to whom the eligible employee stands in loco parentis.
• Biological parents, foster parents, stepparents, or adoptive parents or legal guardians of an eligible employee or an eligible employee's spouse or an individual who stood in loco parentis when the eligible employee was a minor child.
• Individuals to whom eligible employees are legally married under the laws of any state.
• Domestic partners.
• Grandparents.
• Grandchildren.
• Biological, foster, step siblings, or adopted siblings.
• Any individual related by blood or affinity whose close association with an employee is equivalent to a family relationship.

Reinstatement

Employers may not take a negative employment action against an employee within 90 days after the employee files a complaint, opposes illegal practices/policies, tells anyone about their ESTA rights, and so on.

Notices

Employers may require supporting documentation only if employee takes more than 3 consecutive days of paid sick leave. Employers must pay any out-of-pocket costs incurred by the employee in obtaining documentation.

Employees may be required to provide 7 days’ advance notice for foreseeable leave.

Employers must post a notice of the law’s provisions, and give new hires a copy. The poster and notice must be in English, Spanish, and any other language spoken by 10 percent of the workforce if the MI Labor and Economic Opportunity has notices available in those languages.

Civil air patrol

Employers with at least one employee are to provide unpaid leave for employees who are members of the civil air patrols and need to be absent from work to respond to an emergency declared by the governor or the president of the U.S.

Employees are to provide as much notice of the leave as possible. Within 30 days of hire or when they join the civil air patrol, employees are to notify you that they may be called to an emergency. They are also to provide verification from the civil air patrol of the emergency need for the employee’s service.