CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE ACT
The Families First Coronavirus Response Act was signed into law on March 18, 2020. It took effect on April 1, 2020, and remain in effect until December 31, 2020.
This new law includes two provisions providing paid leave to employees forced to miss work because of the COVID-19 outbreak: an emergency expansion of the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA), and a new federal paid sick leave law.
Emergency Family and Medical Leave Expansion Act
The law significantly amends and expands FMLA on a temporary basis. The current employee threshold for FMLA coverage would change from only covering employers with 50 or more employees to instead covering those employers with
fewer than 500 employees
. It also lowers the eligibility requirement such that any employee who has worked for the employer for at least 30 days prior to the designated leave may be eligible to receive paid family and medical leave
.
Under the new law, any individual employed by the employer for at least 30 days (before the first day of leave) may take up to
12 weeks of job-protected leave
to allow an employee who is unable to work or telework to care for the employee’s child (under 18 years of age) if the child’s school or place of care is closed or the childcare provider is unavailable due to a public health emergency.
This is currently the only qualifying need for Emergency FMLA.
Paid Leave
–The first 10 days of Emergency FMLA may be unpaid. After the 10-day period, the employer generally must pay full-time employees
at two-thirds the employee’s regular rate
for the number of hours the employee would otherwise be normally scheduled. The new Act now limits this pay entitlement to $200 per day and $10,000 in the aggregate per employee.
Employers with 25 or more employees will have the same obligation as under traditional FMLA to return any employee who has taken Emergency FMLA to the same or equivalent position upon the return to work.
Emergency Paid Sick Leave Act
Reasons for Paid Sick Leave
– This law allows an eligible employee to take paid sick leave because the employee is:
1.
subject to a federal, state or local quarantine or isolation order related to COVID-19;
2.
advised by a health care provider to self-quarantine due to COVID-19 concerns;
3.
experiencing COVID-19 symptoms and seeking medical diagnosis;
4.
caring for an individual subject to a federal, state or local quarantine or isolation order or advised by a health care provider to self-quarantine due to COVID-19 concerns;
5.
caring for the employee’s child if the child’s school or place of care is closed or the child’s care provider is unavailable due to public health emergency; or
6.
experiencing any other substantially similar condition specified by the Secretary of Health and Human Services in consultation with the Secretary of the Treasury and the Secretary of Labor.
Of note, caring for another who is subject to an isolation order or advised to self-quarantine as described above is no longer limited to just family members.
Employers with
fewer than 500 employees
must provide full-time employees (regardless of the employee’s duration of employment prior to leave) with
80 hours of paid sick leave at the employee’s regular rate
(or two-thirds the employee’s regular rate to care for qualifying reasons 4, 5, or 6 listed above).
Under this law, paid sick leave wages are limited to $511 per day up to $5,110 total per employee for their own use and to $200 per day up to $2,000 total to care for others and any other substantially similar condition.
