Recently, Connecticut significantly expanded its paid sick leave law. Among other changes, the law will apply to more (and eventually all) Connecticut employers and will allow employees to use paid sick leave for illnesses suffered by a broader array of family members.
Original Paid Sick Leave Law
Connecticut originally passed a paid sick leave law in 2011. The law applied to employers with 50 or more “service workers,” who the law defined broadly to include a wide array of workers, including librarians and pharmacists. It allowed covered employees to accrue sick leave at the rate of one hour of sick leave for every 40 hours worked, up to 40 hours of sick leave per year, and to then take leave to care for themselves, a child, or a spouse. Leave could be used for physical or mental health issues, including issues associated with family violence, etc. Various exceptions remain in the law after its expansion.
The law allowed employers to satisfy their requirements by offering “other paid leave,” such as paid vacation time, personal days, or paid time off (PTO). Many employers already had paid leave policies in place that satisfied the law.
New Paid Sick Leave Law
The Connecticut General Assembly has now expanded the law. Instead of applying to employers with 50 or more “service workers,” the law will now apply to employers with 25 or more employees of any type beginning January 1, 2025. On January 1, 2026, it will apply to employers with 11 or more employees. On January 1, 2027, the law will apply to all Connecticut employers.
Covered employees will also accrue sick leave faster. Instead of accruing leave at a rate of one hour of sick leave for every 40 hours worked, employees will accrue one hour of sick leave for every 30 hours worked beginning January 1, 2025. The maximum amount of time a covered employee can receive will remain 40 hours of sick leave per year.
Employees will also be able to use paid sick leave to deal with physical and mental health issues suffered by a broader array of individuals. In addition to children and spouses, employees will be able to take paid sick leave to care for siblings, parents, grandparents, grandchildren, “or an individual related to the employee by blood or affinity whose close association the employee shows to be equivalent to those family relationships” (i.e., a relative or non-relative the employee proves is like a parent, child, sibling, etc.).
Various exceptions remain in the law, such as exceptions for certain construction workers and a new exception for seasonal works (defined as employees who work less than 120 days in any given year).
The law continues to allow covered employers to satisfy their requirements by providing employees with “other paid leave” (e.g., paid vacation, personal days, etc.).
Takeaways
The expansion of the paid sick leave law will progressively affect smaller employers over the coming years. Those employers will need to ensure they have a plan in place to provide the required sick leave if they don’t already offer paid sick or other leave. That may require you to track employees’ hours and retain records, which the law requires you to do if you use an “accrual” method for allocating paid sick leave.
Brendan N. Gooley is an attorney at Carlton Fields in Hartford, Connecticut. He can be reached at bgooley@carltonfields.com.