CT Worker Rights: An Overview of Sick Leave
The Connecticut Paid Leave Act (CPLA) provides covered Connecticut employees the right to accrue, and use, paid sick leave. An eligible employee in Connecticut is anyone who works part-time, full-time, permanent, temporary, or even a substitute for the same employer for a least a 12-month period prior to the date of the time off. A covered employee must be employed in the state of Connecticut by a covered employer. A covered employer does not include the U.S. Government or municipalities; organizations not organized for business purpose within the state; or any employer with fewer than 50 employees . The CPLA requires employers with 50 or more employees to: (1) provide one hour of paid sick leave at the rate of one hour for each 40 hours worked, including overtime, one 30th of an employees average workweek for all employees that work on a salary basis; employees who have worked at least 680 hours during the 12 months immediately preceding the beginning date of leave are also entitled to paid sick leave; however, employees who provide proof of a medical certification that they have a chronic or temporary illness that requires absences exceeding the 40 hour limit are entitled to additional sick leave; (2) Employers may not require covered employees to find replacement workers as a condition of their use of accrued sick leave; (3) Employers are prohibited from interfering with the employees exercise of their rights under the law. Employers with fewer than 50 employees are not required to provide paid sick leave under the act.
Employers with 50 or more employees must notify their employees of their rights pursuant to the CPLA. Employers who fail to abide by the CPLA can be found in violation of the act. Penalties include enforcement of the law through a civil action and obtaining sanctions which include liquidated damages, costs, attorneys’ fees, or any other relief as the court deems appropriate, and fines.
Not Feeling Well? Key Regulations about Calling in Sick
The legal obligations surrounding notifying the employer of an employee’s sickness are fairly straightforward. However, not having these obligations spelled out from the beginning can cause headaches for both an employee and employer later on, and can result in uncertainty regarding employee pay and attendance issues.
Legal Requirements of the Employee
Under Connecticut law, the employee must notify the employer of his or her illness or accident within five days of the absence, unless the employer provides a shorter time period. If the employer does provide a shorter time limit, it must be "reasonable." This requirement applies if the disability may cause sickness or accident leave without pay. An example of this would be if the employee is absent and exhausts all paid leave provided by the employer, and subsequently must take unpaid disability leave that may not be protected under FMLA.
The Connecticut statutes do not require an employer to specifically provide a form for the employee to fill out, but it is a best practice to do so. Generally speaking, a simple certification of disability from a health care provider, submitted by the employee to the employer, should suffice.
Legal Requirements of the Employer
The law allows hospitals, nursing homes, medical care establishments and health care providers the right to adopt procedures requiring the employee to submit a physician’s statement indicating the employee is unable to work due to a disability before reinstating or continuing their salary during the absence.
Employer Policies on Calling in Sick
The sick leave landscape in Connecticut is primarily set by state law. However, individual employers have considerable freedom to craft their own leave policies that impact on the state’s law, allowing for differences around accrual methods to the number of days an employee can have in a year.
The state law, of course, impacts on employer policies. For example, the Connecticut Paid Sick Leave Law, which requires larger employers to provide one hour of paid sick time for every 40 hours worked, caps the number of days an employee can accrue in a calendar year to 40. An employer who wants to provide more than that must do so in compliance with the law in a way that does not improperly limit the employee’s rights granted by the law. In practice, the employer will have to accord the employee’s existing rights under the law, and then the excess will be in addition to the employee’s rights under the law. Also, the employer can designate the first five days of paid sick leave to be used only in situations where the absence would be covered by the Family and Medical Leave Act or Connecticut’s Family and Medical Leave Act.
These are but a few of the ways an employer must conform its own policies within the parameters of state law. Outside of the interaction with state law, an employer may set its own policies to the extent accrual rates, caps, eligibility requirements, carryover provisions, and other terms and conditions of employment and benefits are concerned. Employers are likely to use these policy provisions to impact, for example, the amount of time an employee must be employed with the company before being eligible for sick leave. Employers will also impact policy decisions by the manner in which they allocate paid time off as compared to sick leave obligations under the law. Whatever method is used, these policies should be clearly and explicitly stated in an employer’s employee handbook and communicated to employees.
And finally, however policies are structured, enforcement of paid time off or sick leave policies is developed, if at all, with the Human Resources department, manager, or supervisor overseeing and implementing these policies as applied to the particular leave of absence or paid time off sought by the employee.
CT Paid Sick Leave Act
The Connecticut Paid Sick Leave ("CPSL"), Connecticut Gen. Stat. ยง 31-57r et seq., in effect since January 1, 2012, entitles certain employees in Connecticut to accrue and use up to 40 hours of unpaid leave per calendar year for certain health and care related issues. Unlike traditional sick leave policies, the CPSL is not tied to a specific employment period, but rather to each calendar year. The CPSL is also known as the "Earned Sick Leave Law" but the leave is not "earned" as in, it must be used within the same year it is accrued; rather, it is available for use at any point in the calendar year.
The CPSL is not a benefit available to all employees. An employee is only eligible for the CPSL if they are a service worker (someone who works, on average, less than 32 hours per week and receives tips as part of their wages) and were employed by the same employer for a period of at least 680 hours. If an employee meets the eligibility requirements, then they must be allowed to earn CPSL for use in the calendar year.
CPSL is accrued at a rate of one hour for every 40 hours worked (including overtime), up to a maximum of 40 hours per calendar year. If an employer’s policy allows for carryover of unused sick time, the employer need not provide additional CPSL until the employee reaches the 40 hour annual cap . However, a covered employee who leaves the company, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, is not entitled to any compensation for accrued and unused CPSL benefits when terminating employment with the company. Other restrictions on the use of CPSL include need to be requested at least seven days prior to an employee’s intended use, or as soon as practicable in the case of an unexpected illness. Unlike FMLA, CPSL may be used in less than full-day increments.
Repeats and expands FMLA definition of covered family members. Under the CPSL, "family member" is defined as an employee’s spouse, child (under age 18 or disabled), parent, grandparent, sibling, approving authority for an employee whose religious beliefs prohibit him or her from performing a specific function of his or her office or position, or life-partner.
The CPSL is important to keep in mind when reviewing an employer’s FMLA policy because the CPSL expands the definition of a covered family member. Employees who utilize the CPSL may also be entitled to have their leave run concurrently with the FMLA (if otherwise eligible), but are not subject to the 50 employee employer minimum, although FMLA leaves are subject to the same 12-month and 12-week yearly maximums and intermittent use restrictions.
Concluding a Dispute about Unsanctioned Absence
The dispute resolution process for issues relating to sick leave is generally informal. For example, an employee alleging a violation of the Connecticut sick leave law by an employer (for example, by denying a leave request on some or all of the above grounds or by retaliating against the employee for taking permitted leave) should first attempt to resolve the matter directly with the employer. The employee should gather as much information as possible and then prepare a written complaint, explaining the events that led to the employee’s departure from work and how the employer’s actions violated the law. Employees should keep a copy of any written complaint for their records.
If unsuccessful, employees may file a complaint with the Connecticut Department of Labor at the Labor Department’s 24 Dirksen Drive office in Hartford. The complaint form must be filed within 180 days of the event that the employee alleges is in violation of the law. While the Labor Department website also has a downloadable form for filing complaints, employees also may file complaints at the Labor Department’s regional offices.
A Labor Department investigator will then determine whether there is probable cause to proceed with a hearing before the Human Rights Commission ("HRC"). If so, then the HRC will hold a hearing. If the HRC determines that there is no probable cause, then the HRC will issue a release of jurisdiction and the employee will have only 90 days to commence a civil suit.
As stated above, one of the major advantages of the state sick leave laws is the flexibility afforded to employers in the various statutory requirements. In the unfortunate event that an employee’s rights under these laws are allegedly violated, the dispute resolution procedure reflects that flexibility.
Recent Developments and What Lies Ahead
In the past year, Connecticut has seen significant developments in its sick leave laws. This includes the introduction of new sick leave laws in certain municipalities and legislative proposals directed at expanding paid sick leave laws or extending coverage to other industries. On a federal level, Senate Bill S. 986 proposes modifying the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) to provide paid family and medical leave . That bill is currently pending, but is indicative of the larger trend across the country to adopt such paid leave laws. Although we cannot predict with certainty all of the upcoming changes to state and federal sick leave laws, the trend is clear – sick leave laws are becoming a focal point for legislators across the country.