On February 9, 2022, California Governor Gavin Newsom approved Senate Bill 114 (“SB 114”), which entitles most California employees to a new bucket of COVID-19 supplemental paid sick leave. The law will go into effect on February 19, 2022.
California’s prior law entitling workers to COVID-19 supplemental paid sick leave expired on September 30, 2021. Calls to provide additional leave were made during the recent surge of the “Omicron” variant during the winter of 2021. While that surge has seemingly receded in the last few weeks, the California legislature moved forward and passed SB 114 on February 7, 2022, and Governor Newsom signed it on February 9.
Types of Leave
SB 114 has many similarities to California’s prior law providing employees with COVID-19 specific paid sick leave. Both laws apply only to employers with 25 or more employees. Both laws also entitle most full-time employees to a total of 80 hours of paid leave, which must generally be paid out at the employee’s regular rate of pay. One significant difference, however, is that SB 114 provides for two separate 40-hour buckets of paid leave that can be used for different purposes. Specifically, employers must provide a maximum of 40 hours of paid leave to employees who are unable to work or telework for any of the following reasons:
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