Massachusetts Earned Sick Leave

Compliance Issues
Massachusetts voters approved a new sick leave law that went into effect on July 1, 2015. Many employers took advantage of the so-called “safe harbor” provision in the law and the implementing regulations that allowed them to delay full implementation until January 1, 2016, as long as they complied with certain general provisions of the law. This safe harbor expired on January 1, 2016 – so employers that relied on the safe harbor rules should have put in place new policies to comply with the sick leave law and distributed those policies to their employees before December 31, 2015.

Summary of the Law
Must provide all employees, including part-time, seasonal, and temporary employees, one hour of sick time for every 30 hours worked, up to a maximum of 40 hours per year. Employers with 11 or more employees must provide paid sick time; employers with fewer than 11 employees must provide unpaid sick time. The law permits employees to take sick leave for the following purposes:

(1) An employee’s own physical or mental illness or injury that requires care;
(2) To care for the employee’s immediate family member suffering from physical or mental illness or injury;
(3) For the employee’s own or their immediate family member’s attendance at routine medical appointments; or
(4) To address the psychological, physical, or legal effects of domestic violence against the employee or the employee’s child.

 
Employers with Paid Time off Plans
Employers with a policy in place that provides paid time off (PTO) or paid sick leave will be deemed in compliance with the Earned Sick Time Law if they provide certain criteria in their current policies, as follows:

  • Employers that provide employees with 40 or more hours of paid time off or vacation that also can be used as earned sick time consistent with the Earned Sick Time Law are not required to provide additional sick leave to employees who use all their time for other purposes (e., vacation or personal time), provided that the employers’ leave policies make clear that additional time will not be provided.
  • Employers may have their own sick leave or paid time off policies, as long as all employees can use at least the same amount of time, for the same purposes, under the same conditions, and with the same job protections provided in the Earned Sick Time Law.
  • Employers that provide other forms of PTO or vacation time are not required to provide additional paid sick time if employees can use the PTO or vacation time for sick leave on the same terms and conditions provided under the sick leave law. Further, if an employee exhausts the time by using it for purposes other than sick leave (i.e., vacation or PTO), the employer does not need to give the employee additional sick time, as long as it has given employees notice that additional sick time will not be provided in such circumstances.

The Earned Sick Time Notice of Employee Rights requires a new All-In-One poster instead of the Peel-N-Post overlay.

Celia Couture

Celia Couture is a business coach, author, keynote speaker and management consultant that shows companies how to make more money while working fewer hours. She specializes in executive training programs and succession planning for family owned businesses.