A busy 2022 California legislative season has officially come to a close with new laws impacting California employers in 2023 and beyond. A summary of these 2022 employment bills follows below. Unless otherwise noted, these bills will take effect on January 1, 2023.
AB 152 (COVID-19 Relief: Supplemental Paid Sick Leave)
Effective immediately, AB 152 extends California’s existing 2022 COVID-19 supplemental paid sick leave (“SPSL”) entitlements through December 31, 2022, but does not provide additional leave time for employees who previously exhausted available COVID-19 SPSL. Under the 2022 SPSL law, covered employers are required to provide (1) up to 40 hours of SPSL to eligible full-time employees who are unable to work or telework due to certain COVID-19-related reasons, as well as (2) a second allotment of up to 40 more SPSL hours if the employee or a family member for whom they are caring tests positive for COVID-19. Employers may require documentation of a positive COVID-19 test result and require the employee to retest after 5 days have passed from the initial positive test, before paying the “testing positive” allotment of SPSL to an employee. AB 152 expands prior law by allowing employers to require an employee that has tested positive for COVID-19 to submit to a 3rd diagnostic test within no less than 24 hours of their 2nd positive test. All such testing must be at no cost to the employee.
The law also provides for a grant program to assist qualified small...
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