Colorado Adopts Emergency Paid Sick Leave 2020-03-12T12:29:09-06:00

Posted on March 12, 2020

The Colorado Department of Labor and Employment adopted the Health Emergency Leave with Pay Rules, 7 CCR 1103-10, to limit the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19). The emergency rules require employers in certain industries to provide up to four days of paid sick leave to any employee (a) with flu-like symptoms and (b) who is being tested for coronavirus.

The emergency rules apply to employers and employees in the following industries, regardless of pay rates or pay methods:

Leisure and hospitality
Food services
Child care
Education, including transportation, food service, and related work at educational establishments
Home health, if working with elderly, disabled, ill, or otherwise high-risk individuals
Nursing homes
Community living facilities

Employers that already provide paid leave do not need to provide additional sick leave under the emergency rules, unless the covered employee has already exhausted any paid leave allotted by the employer. The paid sick leave ends if an employee receives a negative test result.

The emergency rules are effective March 11, 2020, and will last for 30 days or for the duration of the State of Disaster Emergency declared by Governor Polis on March 10, 2020, up to a maximum of 120 days.

The emergency rules can be found here, and more information about what employers need to know about coronavirus is here.

For any questions about Colorado’s Health Emergency Leave with Pay Rules, contact a member of the Sherman & Howard Labor and Employment Group.

New Paid Leave Law in Nevada 2019-06-18T09:17:46-06:00

Posted on June 18, 2019

By Lindsay H. S. Hesketh

Beginning on January 1, 2020, Nevada will require private employers with 50 or more employees to provide their employees with paid leave. Covered employers must allow employees to accrue paid leave at a rate of .01923 hours for each hour worked. Employees can begin using their accrued paid leave on their 90th calendar day of employment. Employers may allow employees to carry over unused accrued leave from year to year, but also may cap the carry-over amount to 40 hours. Similar to other leave laws, employers must also keep records tracking employees’ accruals and use of paid leave and provide an accounting of available paid leave to each employee on each payday.

Unlike some federal and state leave laws limited to family and sick leave, employees may use paid leave under Nevada’s new law for any reason and do not need to provide a reason for its use to their employer. However, employees must provide notice of their desire to use paid leave as soon as practicable. When employees act in accordance with this law, employers cannot deny employees the right to use paid leave, require an employee to find a replacement worker while on paid leave, or retaliate against an employee for using accrued paid leave. Nevada may collect remedies and penalties, plus a $5000 fine, for each violation.

The law does not apply to otherwise eligible employers during their first two years of operation; temporary, seasonal, or on-call employees; and employers who already provide their employees with the same or a more generous amount of paid leave.

You can read the entire bill as adopted here.

DOL says: Don’t Be Too Generous With Your Employees 2019-03-18T11:43:13-06:00

Posted on March 18, 2019

By Beth Ann Lennon

Thursday the Department of Labor (”DOL”) issued three new opinion letters, two of which warrant a quick note. One provided guidance regarding the Family Medical Leave Act (“FMLA”), and the other addressed the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”). Both had the same ultimate takeaway – employer generosity easily backfires.

Providing more than unpaid FMLA Leave – According to the DOL, employers who want to provide employees more leave than the FMLA requires violate the FMLA if they delay designating leave as FMLA-qualifying to allow employees to exhaust other available paid leave. “[A]n employer may not delay the designation of FMLA-qualifying leave or designate more than 12 weeks of leave . . . as FMLA leave,” even if doing so benefits the employee. Employers have five days from when they have “enough information” to determine whether an employee’s leave is for a “FMLA-qualifying reason” to designate that leave as FMLA leave. The catch-22? The DOL also considers it a violation of the FMLA for an employer to not provide FMLA eligible employees “any employment benefit [provided for in a company policy] . . . that provides greater family or medical leave rights to employees than the rights established by the FMLA.” In other words, employers who provide more than 12 weeks of unpaid leave to employees need to make sure their leave policies are properly drafted and implemented, or their generosity could get them into hot water.

Encouraging Volunteer Work – The DOL also determined that employer generosity can be a violation of the law when employers provide bonuses for employees who engage in company sponsored volunteer work. According to the DOL, employers who encourage employee participation in volunteer activities may have to treat that volunteer time as “hours worked” under the FLSA unless they are very careful. Don’t want to pay overtime for your employees’ weekend housebuilding activities? Follow these (not so) simple rules…

Employers cannot “direct or control the employees’ activities” during these volunteer activities.
Employers cannot “guarantee a bonus for volunteering.”
Employers cannot require participation in the volunteer program or even “unduly pressure its employees to participate.”
And employees cannot suffer any “adverse effect” on “working conditions or employment prospects” because they do not participate.

Again, the takeaway is clear – if you encourage volunteer activities by your employees, this encouragement must be through a policy that is effectively drafted and administered to ensure compliance with the DOL’s new list of “do not”s.

Posted on March 12, 2020

Posted on June 18, 2019

Posted on March 18, 2019

Email Disclaimer

Email Disclaimer