An increasing number of our employees are registering with domestic partners. Can an employee take kin care leave to spend time with his or her domestic partner?
— Stephen D., HR Manager in Walnut Creek
Yes, an employee can take kin care leave to spend time with a domestic partner. Under the state’s kin care law, employees are allowed to use up to half the sick leave they have accrued to care for a family member. Before we discuss other benefits available to domestic partners, let’s first define a “domestic partnership” in California. It is a relationship between two individuals that usually make up a same-sex couple but may also make up an opposite-sex couple if one or both of the partners is at least 62 years old. In 2005, the California Supreme Court upheld the right of domestic partners to legalize their relationships.
To obtain domestic partnership benefits in California, same-sex couples, or opposite-sex couples who meet specified Social Security requirements, must file a Declaration of Domestic Partnership with the California secretary of state.
Rights Extended to Domestic Partners
The California Domestic Partner Rights and Responsibilities Act clearly provides that domestic partners have the same rights as spouses: “Registered domestic partners shall have the same rights, protections, and benefits, and shall be subject to the same responsibilities, obligations, and duties under law, whether they derive from statutes, administrative regulations, court rules, government policies, common law, or any other provisions or sources of law, as are granted to and imposed upon spouses.”
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The employment-related benefits and protections extended to employees in domestic partnerships and their partners are as follows:
- Employees in a domestic partnership may use up to one-half of their annual sick leave for kin care that includes caring for a domestic partner or the child of a domestic partner.
- Employers may not have an absence control policy that considers sick leave taken to care for a domestic partner as a basis for discipline or discharge.
- Domestic partners are eligible for retirement benefits.
- Domestic partners are entitled to death benefits.
- Unemployment benefits are available to an employee who quits to accompany or join a domestic partner at a new location.
- Leave to care for a seriously ill domestic partner is included in the state’s Paid Family Leave law.
- The California Family Rights Act allows an employee in a domestic partnership to take up to 12 weeks of leave from work to care for a domestic partner or a child of a domestic partner who has a serious health condition.
- California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act prohibits discrimination in employment based on sexual orientation.
- Group health plans must provide coverage for the registered domestic partners of employees to the same extent as provided to employees’ spouses.