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In addition to the federal FMLA, Michigan employers need to be aware of state provisions such as the Paid Medical Leave Act and the Civil Air Patrol Employment Protection Act.
Under the state Paid Medical Leave Act, effective March 2019, employers must provide employees with accrued paid medical leave for qualifying reasons.
Employers with 50 or more employees in the U.S. are covered by the Paid Medical Leave Act. The U.S. government, another state, and a political subdivision of another state are not covered by this law.
Employees are eligible if they are non-exempt, work in the state, work at least 25 hours in a calendar year, and have worked an average of at least 25 hours per week during the preceding calendar year. Employees are not eligible if they work for a private employer under a collective bargaining agreement, work for the government, variable hour employees as defined by the federal Affordable Care Act, and certain temporary help agency employees.
Employees accrue one hour of sick leave for every 35 hours worked.
Employers who provide at least 40 hours of paid leave to an eligible employee is considered to be in compliance with the state law.
Employees begin to accrue as of the effective date of the law or upon hire, whichever is later. Employees may generally use the leave as it is accrued, but employers may require employees to wait until 90 days after hire before using the leave.
Employers are not required to allow employees to accrue more than one hour of paid medical leave in a calendar week.
Employers may limit an employee’s accrual of paid medical leave to 40 hours per year. Employers are also not required to allow an employee to carry over more than 40 hours of unused accrued paid medical leave from one year to another, or to allow employees to use more than 40 hours of paid medical leave in a single year.
Instead of allowing for accrual and carry over, employers may frontload 40 hours of paid medical leave at the beginning of a year.
Leave must be taken in one-hour increments, unless the employer has a policy indicating otherwise.
When requesting leave, employees must comply with the employer’s usual and customary notice, procedural, and documentation requirements for requesting leave. Employees have three days to provide the employer with requested documentation.
Employers are not required to pay an employee for accrued earned sick time that was not used upon the employee’s separation from employment.
Employers must display a poster regarding this law.
Employees are to be paid at a rate equal to the greater of either the normally hourly wage, the employee’s base wage, or the minimum wage under state law.
Failure to provide leave under the law can result in penalties of up to $1,000.00. Employees may also receive payment of leave.
Related records are to be kept for at least one year.
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, will remain in place.
This will likely be appealed to the Michigan Supreme Court.
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.
Qualifying reasons
Family members include:
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.
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.
Paid Medical Leave Act (e.g., the Earned Sick Leave Act effective 2/20/23)
Michigan compiled laws, Title 408 – Labor, §§408.961 et seq.
http://legislature.mi.gov/doc.aspx?mcl-408-961
Civil Air Patrol
Michigan compiled laws, Title 408 – Labor, §408.921
http://legislature.mi.gov/doc.aspx?mcl-408-921
Contacts
US Dept. of Labor, Wage & Hour Division
Regulations
29 CFR Part 825, “The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993”