Researcher: LRH Page 1 4/14/21
OLR Bill Analysis
sHB 6537
AN ACT CONCERNING EXPANSION OF PAID SICK DAYS AND
DOMESTIC WORKER COVERAGE.
SUMMARY
This bill expands the state’s current paid sick leave law in numerous
ways. It also establishes a new paid sick leave requirement for leave
specifically related to COVID-19.
The state’s current paid sick leave law generally requires employers
with at least 50 employees to provide paid sick leave to their “service
workers” in certain specified occupations. The bill expands the law by,
among other things:
1. covering all private-sector employers and employees under it;
2. broadening the types of family members for whom an employee
may use the leave;
3. increasing the rate at which employees accrue leave and
removing the waiting period before they may use it; and
4. broadening the reasons employees may use the leave to include
things such as the employer’s closure due to a public health
emergency.
It also makes numerous minor, technical, and conforming changes
to the paid sick leave law.
The bill also creates a new requirement for all private-sector
employers to provide additional COVID-19 sick leave to their
employees. They must provide at least 80 hours of this leave to their
regular full-time employees and a prorated amount of leave for other
employees. The bill allows employees to use the leave retroactively to
March 10, 2020, and until four weeks after the governor’s emergency 2021HB-06537-R000435-BA.DOCX
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declarations (presumably COVID-19-related) expire.
Under the bill, employees may use the COVID-19 sick leave for
various reasons related to COVID-19, such as complying with a
COVID-19 quarantine order; caring for a family member subject to a
quarantine order; caring for a child whose school was closed due to
COVID-19; or having a health condition that may increase the
employee’s susceptibility to COVID-19. Employees must be paid their
normal hourly wage for their time on leave.
The bill requires the labor commissioner to enforce the bill’s
COVID-19 sick leave provisions, but it also allows people aggrieved by
a violation to bring a civil lawsuit without first filing an administrative
complaint with the commissioner. Among other things, it also
establishes employer notice and recordkeeping requirements.
EFFECTIVE DATE: July 1, 2021, for the provision that expands the
existing paid sick leave; upon passage for the provisions that establish
COVID-19 sick leave.
§§ 1-6 — EXISTING PAID SICK LEAVE EXPANSION
Covered Employers & Employees (§ 1)
The current paid sick leave law covers private sector employers
with at least 50 employees, except manufacturers and certain non-
profits. The bill covers all private sector employers regardless of their
size, industry, or non-profit status. It also requires the state’s Personal
Care Attendant Workforce Council to act on behalf of the employers of
people who provide personal care assistance (PCAs) under a state-
funded program, such as the Connecticut Home Care Program for
Elders. (The consumer for whom the PCA provides services for is
generally otherwise considered the PCA’s employer.)
The bill also expands current law to cover all private sector
employers’ employees, rather than only the specified “service worker”
occupations covered by current law. It also includes the day or
temporary workers excluded from the current paid sick day law.
Family Members (§ 1) 2021HB-06537-R000435-BA.DOCX
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Current law allows covered employees to use paid sick time to care
for their child or spouse. The bill broadens the range of “family
members” that employees may use paid sick time to care for to include
their adult children, siblings, parents, grandparents, grandchildren,
and anyone related by blood or affinity whose close association is the
equivalent of these family members. Under the bill, children, siblings,
parents, grandparents, and grandchildren include those relations by
blood, marriage, adoption, or foster care.
Leave Accrual, Availability, and Uses (§§ 2-4)
Leave Accrual. The bill increases the rate at which employees
accrue leave time, from one hour per every 40 hours worked to one
hour per every 30 hours worked. It also allows employers to provide
an employee, at the beginning of the year, with all of the sick leave that
the employer expects the employee to accrue in the year.
The bill specifies that employees exempt from federal law’s
overtime pay requirements must be assumed to work 40 hours per
week for leave accrual purposes, unless their normal work week is less
than 40 hours. If it is, then their leave accrual must be based on their
normal work week. (Current law does not explicitly address this
issue.)
Under current law, an employee’s termination is a break in service
and the employee’s previously accrued sick time does not carry over if
the employee is rehired by the same employer. The bill instead entitles
a re-employed employee to any sick time he or she previously accrued
with the employer.
The bill requires that employees maintain their accrued paid sick
time when (1) they transfer to a separate division, entity, or location
with the same employer or (2) when a different employer succeeds or
replaces an existing employer. (Current law does not explicitly address
either of these issues.)
Leave Availability. Under current law, employees must work 680
hours for their employer before they can use their leave. The bill 2021HB-06537-R000435-BA.DOCX
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instead allows employees to use their leave as it is accrued. It also
allows employees to use the leave regardless of how much they work
by eliminating a provision in current law that allows employees to use
leave only if they average at least 10 work hours per week.
Leave Uses. The bill expands the reasons for which an employee
may use sick leave to include when (1) the employer’s place of
business is closed by order of a public official due to a public health
emergency or (2) an employee needs to care for a family member
whose school or place of care has been closed by such an order.
It also allows for leave if the employee needs to care for him or
herself or a family member under quarantine (i.e., when it has been
determined that the employee or family member’s presence in the
community may jeopardize others’ health because of their exposure to
a communicable disease, regardless of whether they actually
contracted it). The determination for a quarantine must be made by a
health authority with jurisdiction, a health care provider, or the
employee’s or family member’s employer.
Current law allows an employee to use paid sick leave if he or she
was a victim of family violence or sexual assault and needs leave to do
certain things (e.g., receive counseling or participate in civil or criminal
proceedings). The bill additionally allows employees to use the leave if
their family member is a victim of family violence or sexual assault
and needs to do these same things.
The current paid sick leave law deems an employer in compliance
with its requirements to provide leave if the employer offers other paid
leave that may be used for the same purposes as provided in the law.
The bill requires that employees be able to use the other paid leave
under the same conditions for the exception to apply.
The bill prohibits employers from requiring employees taking paid
sick leave to look for or find a replacement to cover their hours on
leave. It also removes a provision in current law that prohibits an
employer from requiring employees to their use accrued paid sick
leave if they choose to work additional hours or shifts during the same 2021HB-06537-R000435-BA.DOCX
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or following pay period, in lieu of hours or shifts missed.
Documentation (§ 3)
Under certain circumstances, current law allows employers to
require employees to provide documentation to support their reasons
for taking leave. The bill limits this authority by prohibiting employers
from requiring documentation that explains the nature of the illness or,
if the employee is taking leave due to family violence or sexual assault,
the details of the domestic violence, sexual assault, harassment, or
stalking.
If the employer requires documentation but does not offer health
insurance, the bill requires the employer to pay all out-of-pocket
expenses for obtaining the documentation. If the employee has health
insurance, the employer must pay any costs charged to the employee
for the documentation. The employer must pay any costs charged to
the employee for obtaining documentation for leave related to family
violence, sexual assault, harassment, or stalking.
Lawsuits (§ 5)
The bill expands the current law’s enforcement provisions to also
allow the labor commissioner, the attorney general, or someone
aggrieved by a violation of the paid sick leave law to bring a lawsuit
against an employer without first filing an administrative complaint
with the labor commissioner. Under current law, someone aggrieved
by a violation may file a complaint with the labor commissioner and
then appeal the commissioner’s decision to the Superior Court.
Employer Notice & Records (§ 6)
Current law requires employers to notify employees about certain
provisions of the paid sick leave law and allows them to do so by
displaying a poster in the workplace. The bill instead requires
employers to give written notice to each employee about these
provisions and display a poster about them in the workplace. They
must do this by January 1, 2022, or when an employee is hired,
whichever is later. If the employer does not maintain a physical
workplace, or an employee teleworks or works through a web-based 2021HB-06537-R000435-BA.DOCX
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or app-based platform, the bill requires the employer to provide the
notices through electronic communication or a posting on a web-based
or app-based platform. It also requires the labor commissioner, within
available appropriations, to provide posters and model written notices
to employers.
The bill requires that employee “pay stubs” include an employee’s
accrued paid sick time and use for the calendar year. It also requires
employers to maintain their paid sick leave records for three years and
give the labor commissioner access to them, with appropriate notice
and at a mutually agreeable time (the bill does not specify when this
three-year period begins). If an issue arises over an employee’s
entitlement to paid sick leave and the employer does not have the
required records, the bill requires that it be presumed that the
employer violated the law’s notice and records requirements, absent
clear and convincing evidence otherwise.
DOL Outreach Program (§ 6)
The bill allows the labor commissioner, within available
appropriations, to develop and implement a multilingual outreach
program to inform people about the paid sick leave law. The program
must include notices and other written material in English, Spanish,
and any language that is the first language spoken by at least 5% of the
state’s population. These must be distributed to all child care and elder
care providers, domestic violence shelters, schools, hospitals,
community health centers, and other health care providers.
Lastly, the bill requires the labor commissioner to adopt regulations
to implement the paid sick time law. Current law allows him to adopt
regulations about the law’s notice requirements.
§§ 7-12 — COVID-19 SICK LEAVE
Leave Requirement (§§ 7, 8(a)&(b))
The bill requires all private-sector employers to provide their
employees with additional COVID-19 sick leave that they can use for
certain purposes related to COVID-19. They must provide at least 80
hours of this leave to employees who normally work 40 hours per 2021HB-06537-R000435-BA.DOCX
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week. Employees who work less than that must receive COVID-19 sick
time that equals the amount of time they are scheduled to work or that
they work on average over a two-week period, whichever is greater.
Employees exempt from federal law’s overtime pay requirements must
be assumed to work 40 hours per week for leave accrual purposes,
unless their normal work week is less than 40 hours. If it is, then their
leave accrual must be based on their normal work week.
To calculate leave amounts for employees who work variable
schedules of less than 40 hours per week, the bill requires employers to
use the employee’s average weekly hours over the six months
preceding the leave, including any leave hours that the employee took
during that period. If the employee did not work over that period, the
average must be the employee’s reasonable expectation, at the time of
hire, of the average number of hours per week that he or she would be
regularly scheduled to work.
The bill requires that the leave be available to employees
immediately and retroactively to March 10, 2020, regardless of how
long they have been employed, and remain available until four weeks
after the governor’s emergency declarations (presumably over COVID-
19) expire.
“Employers” who must provide CO VID-19 sick leave are any
person, firm, business, educational institution, nonprofit organization,
corporation, limited liability company, or other entity. This includes
the state’s Personal Care Attendant Workforce Council, which under
the bill is the employer of people who provide personal care assistance
(PCAs) under a state-funded program, such as the Connecticut Home
Care Program for Elders. It does not include the federal government.
“Employees” eligible for COVID-19 sick leave under the bill are
anyone engaged in service to an employer in the employer’s business.
Reasons for Leave (§§ 7-8(c)&(d))
Under the bill, employees may use the COVID-19 sick leave when
they are unable to work, including through telework, because they: 2021HB-06537-R000435-BA.DOCX
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1. need to (a) self-isolate and care for themselves due to a COVID-
19 diagnosis or symptoms; (b) seek COVID-19 preventive care;
or (c) seek or obtain a diagnosis, care, or treatment for COVID-
19 symptoms;
2. need to comply with an order or determination to self-isolate
because of their possible exposure to COVID-19 or have
COVID-19 symptoms, regardless of whether they were
diagnosed with COVID-19, and their physical presence on the
job or in the community would jeopardize their health or that of
other employees or someone in the employee’s household (i.e., a
quarantine order);
3. need to care for a family member who is (a) self-isolating or
seeking preventive care, diagnosis, or treatment or (b) self-
isolating due to a COVID-19 quarantine order;
4. were prohibited from working by their employer due to health
concerns related to potential COVID-19 transmission;
5. are subject to an individual or general local, state, or federal
quarantine or isolation order related to COVID-19;
6. need to care for a child or other family member whose care
provider is unavailable due to COVID-19 or whose school or
place of care has been closed by a local, state, or federal public
official due to COVID-19 (including schools that are (a)
physically closed but providing virtual learning, (b) requiring or
allowing virtual learning, or (c) requiring or allowing a hybrid
of in-person and virtual learning); or
7. have a health condition that may increase susceptibility to or
risk of COVID-19, including age, heart disease, asthma, lung
disease, diabetes, kidney disease, or a weakened immune
system.
If the employee needs the leave to self-isolate due to a quarantine
order, or to care for a family member who must self-isolate due to a 2021HB-06537-R000435-BA.DOCX
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quarantine order, the order must be from a local, state, or federal
public official, a health authority with jurisdiction, or the employer of
the employee or employee’s family member. But it does not have to be
specific to the employee or family member.
Under the bill, a “family member” for whom an employee may take
COVID-19 sick leave is (1) the employee's spouse, child, parent,
grandparent, grandchild, or sibling, whether related to the employee
by blood, marriage, adoption or foster care, or (2) an individual related
to the employee by blood or affinity whose close association with the
employee is the equivalent of those family relationships. A “parent” is
a biological parent, foster parent, adoptive parent, stepparent, parent-
in-law of the employee, legal guardian of an employee or an
employee's spouse, an individual standing in loco parentis (i.e., in
place of a parent) to an employee, or an individual who stood in loco
parentis to the employee when the employee was a minor child.
COVID-19 Sick Leave Pay (§ 8(e))
The bill requires that an employee’s pay for COVID-19 sick leave be
the greater of the employee’s normal hourly wage or the minimum
wage. If an employee’s hourly wage varies, the "normal hourly wage"
is the employee’s average hourly wage over the pay period prior to the
one in which the employee uses the leave.
Employee Notice & Documentation (§ 8(f)&(g))
The bill requires an employee to give the employer advance notice
about the need for COVID-19 sick leave as soon as practicable, but
only if the need for leave is foreseeable and the employer's place of
business has not been closed. It prohibits an employer from requiring
an employee to provide documentation for COVID-19 sick leave.
Transfers & Successor Employers (§ 8(h))
The bill requires that employees maintain their accrued COVID-19
sick leave when (1) they transfer to a separate division, entity, or
location with the same employer or (2) when a different employer
succeeds or replaces an existing employer. 2021HB-06537-R000435-BA.DOCX
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Employee Replacements (§ 8(i))
The bill prohibits employers from requiring that an employee search
for or find a replacement worker to cover the hours during which the
employee is using COVID-19 sick leave.
Other Benefits and Collective Bargaining Agreements (§ 9)
The bill specifies that its COVID-19 sick leave provisions do not (1)
discourage or prohibit an employer from adopting or retaining a more
generous COVID-19 sick leave, paid sick leave, or other paid leave
policy; (2) diminish any rights provided to an employee under a
collective bargaining agreement; or (3) prohibit an employer from
establishing a policy that allows employees to donate unused COVID-
19 sick leave to other employees.
It also allows an employee to use the COVID-19 sick leave before
using the paid sick leave provided by current law, as amended by the
bill. And it prohibits an employer from requiring an employee to use
other paid leave before using the COVID-19 leave.
Enforcement (§ 10)
The bill makes it illegal for an employer or anyone else to interfere
with, restrain, or deny someone using or trying to use the bill’s
COVID-19 sick leave rights. It prohibits employers from taking
retaliatory personnel actions or discriminating against an employee
because the employee (1) requests or uses COVID-19 sick leave or (2)
files a complaint with the labor commissioner alleging the employer's
violation. Under the bill, a “retaliatory personnel action” is a
termination, suspension, constructive discharge, demotion,
unfavorable reassignment, refusal to promote, reduction of hours,
disciplinary action, or other adverse employment action taken by an
employer against an employee.
Complaints & Lawsuits. The bill allows an employee aggrieved by
a violation of the bill’s COVID-19 sick leave provisions to file a
complaint with the labor commissioner. Upon receiving the complaint,
the commissioner may hold a hearing. If he finds the employer in
violation by a preponderance of the evidence, the bill imposes the 2021HB-06537-R000435-BA.DOCX
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same civil penalty allowed under the paid sick day law (up to $500)
and allows the commissioner to award the employee appropriate relief
(e.g., pay for used sick leave, rehiring). A party aggrieved by the
commissioner’s decision may appeal to the Superior Court.
The bill requires the labor commissioner to advise an employee who
files a complaint and is covered by a collective bargaining agreement
that provides for COVID-19 sick leave about the employee's right to
pursue a grievance with his or her collective bargaining agent.
The bill also allows anyone aggrieved by a violation of the bill’s
COVID-19 sick leave provisions, the labor commissioner, or the
attorney general to bring a civil action in court without first filing an
administrative complaint.
The bill requires the labor commissioner to administer these
enforcement provisions within available appropriations.
Employer Notice & Records Requirements (§ 11)
Employer Notice. The bill requires employers to provide written
notice to each employee (1) about the entitlement to COVID-19 sick
leave, the amount of leave provided, and the terms under which it can
be used; (2) that retaliatory personnel actions are prohibited; and (3)
about the right to file a complaint with the labor commissioner or file a
civil action. They must provide this notice within 14 days after the bill
takes effect or at the employee’s time of hiring, whichever is later.
The bill also requires employers to display a poster that contains the
same information in both English and Spanish. If the employer does
not maintain a physical workplace, or an employee teleworks or
performs work through a web-based or app-based platform, the
notification must be sent via electronic communication or a
conspicuous posting in the web-based or app-based platform. The bill
requires the labor commissioner to provide the posters and model
written notices to all employers.
Additionally, the bill requires employers to include in employee pay
stubs the number of hours, if any, of COVID-19 sick leave received and 2021HB-06537-R000435-BA.DOCX
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used by each employee in the calendar year.
Employer Records Requirements. The bill requires employers to
retain records documenting the hours worked and COVID-19 sick
leave taken by employees for three years. (The bill does not specify
when this three-year period begins.) The employers must allow the
labor commissioner to access them, with appropriate notice and at a
mutually agreeable time, to monitor compliance. For issues about an
employee's entitlement to COVID-19 sick leave, if the employer does
not maintain or retain adequate records, or does not allow reasonable
access to them, the bill requires that it be presumed that the employer
violated these recordkeeping requirements unless there is clear and
convincing evidence otherwise.
DOL. The bill allows the labor commissioner to develop and
implement a multilingual outreach program to inform employees,
parents, and people under a health care provider’s care about the
availability of COVID-19 sick leave. The program may include notices
and written materials in English and other languages.
It also requires the labor commissioner to promulgate appropriate
guidelines or regulations to coordinate implementation a nd
enforcement of the bill’s COVID-19 sick leave provisions.
It requires the labor commissioner to administer these provisions on
DOL’s and the bill’s employer notice and records requirements within
available appropriations.
Disclosure of Health Information (§ 12)
Unless otherwise required by law, the bill prohibits an employer
from requiring disclosure of the details of an employee's or an
employee's family member's health information as a condition for
providing COVID-19 sick leave. If an employer possesses this health
information, it must be treated as confidential and not disclosed except
to the employee or with the employee’s permission.
BACKGROUND
Related Bills 2021HB-06537-R000435-BA.DOCX
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sHB 6595 (§§ 20-25) and sSB 1002 (§§ 20-25), reported favorably by
the Labor and Public Employee Committee, both contain COVID-19
sick leave provisions that are identical to §§ 7-12 in this bill.
COMMITTEE ACTION
Labor and Public Employees Committee
Joint Favorable Substitute
Yea 9 Nay 4 (03/25/2021)