O F F I C E O F L E G I S L A T I V E R E S E A R C H
P U B L I C A C T S U M M A R Y
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PA 24-8—sHB 5005
Labor and Public Employees Committee
AN ACT EXPANDING PAI D SICK DAYS IN THE STATE
SUMMARY: This act expands the state’s paid sick leave law in numerous ways.
The prior paid sick leave law generally required certain employers with at least 50
employees to give up to 40 hours of paid sick leave annually to their “service
workers” in certain specified occupations (e.g., food service workers, health care
workers, and numerous others). The act expands the law by, among other things:
1. covering nearly all private sector employees and employers with at least 25
employees in 2025, those with at least 11 employees in 2026, and then those
with at least one employee in 2027 (the act exempts seasonal employees
and certain union construction workers and their employers);
2. broadening the range of family members for whom an employee may use
the leave;
3. increasing the rate at which employees accrue leave and changing the
waiting period before they may use it; and
4. broadening the reasons employees may use the leave to include events like
closures due to a public health emergency and quarantines.
The act prohibits employers from requiring their employees to provide
documentation to support their reasons for taking leave. It also removes provisions
from prior law that generally allowed employers to require employees to give them
advance notice about a foreseeable leave.
It expands employer notice requirements by requiring employers to give written
notice to each employee about the paid sick leave law. The act also sets employer
recordkeeping requirements that, among other things, require (1) employee “pay
stubs” to include an employee’s accrued paid sick time and use for the calendar
year and (2) employers to maintain their paid sick leave records for three years.
The act specifies that the paid sick leave law does not preempt or override the
terms of any collective bargaining agreement entered into on or after July 1, 2012,
under the law that allows certain family child care providers and personal care
attendants (PCAs) to collectively bargain with the state (§ 4, see BACKGROUND).
It also makes numerous minor, technical, and conforming changes.
For FY 25, the act also (1) requires the labor commissioner to ensure that certain
duties and responsibilities for the paid sick leave law are performed within available
appropriations and (2) prohibits the Office of Policy and Management (OPM)
secretary from reducing certain budgetary expenditures and allotments for the
Department of Labor’s (DOL) wage enforcement agents.
Lastly, the act creates a task force to study establishing a paid sick leave tax
credit for employers with five or fewer employees in the state. The task force must
study the feasibility of establishing the tax credit, including whether or how to
mitigate any expenses these employers incur due to the paid sick leave law. O L R P U B L I C A C T S U M M A R Y
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EFFECTIVE DATE: January 1, 2025, except that the provisions on the (1) FY 25
budget are effective July 1, 2024, and (2) task force are effective upon passage.
§§ 1-3 — COVERED EMPLOYERS, EMPLOYEES, & FAMILY MEMBERS
Employers
The prior paid sick leave law covered private sector employers with at least 50
employees, except manufacturers and certain non-profits. The act gradually
expands the law’s coverage to nearly all private sector employers regardless of their
size, industry, or non-profit status by extending coverage to employers with at least
25 employees starting January 1, 2025; then to employers with at least 11
employees starting January 1, 2026; and to all employers starting January 1, 2027.
However, it exempts (1) employers that participate in a multi-employer health
plan requiring contributions from multiple employers and maintained under a
collective bargaining agreement between employers and a construction-related
tradesperson employee organization (e.g., union) or organizations and (2) self-
employed people.
Employees
The act also expands the law to cover nearly all private sector employees,
except for seasonal employees and the construction workers employed by the
exempted employers described above, rather than only the specified “service
worker” occupations covered by prior law (e.g., home health aides, nurses, security
guards, janitors, and cashiers). It also covers the day or temporary workers excluded
from the prior law (unless they are seasonal employees). Under the act, “seasonal
employees” are employees who work 120 days or less in any year.
For determining the sick leave law’s applicability, the number of an employer’s
employees is based on the employees on the employer’s payroll for a particular
week each year. Under prior law, this was the payroll for the week that included
October 1. The act changes this to the payroll for the week that includes January 1.
Family Members (§§ 1 & 3)
Prior law allowed covered employees to use paid sick leave to care for their
minor or disabled child (or child for whom they stand in place of a parent) or
spouse. The act broadens the range of “family members” for whom employees may
use paid sick leave to include their adult children, siblings, parents, grandparents,
grandchildren, and anyone related to the employee by blood or affinity whose close
association the employee shows is equivalent to those family members.
Under the act, siblings and grandchildren include those relations by blood,
marriage, adoption, or foster care, as is the case for children under existing law.
Parents include a biological, foster, or adoptive parent, stepparent, parent-in-law,
legal guardian, and someone who stands or stood in the place of a parent.
Under prior law, a “spouse” was a husband or wife. Under the act, a spouse is O L R P U B L I C A C T S U M M A R Y
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instead (1) someone who is legally married to an employee under the laws of any
state or (2) an employee’s domestic partner registered under the laws of any state
or political subdivision.
§ 2 — LEAVE ACCRUAL AND AVAILABILITY
Leave Accrual
The act increases the rate at which employees accrue leave, from one hour per
every 40 hours worked to one hour per every 30 hours worked. For newly covered
employers and employees, the leave begins accruing on the January 1 that they
become covered by the law (i.e., 2025 for employers with at least 25 employees,
2026 for employers with at least 11 employees, and 2027 for employers with at
least one employee). Employees hired after those dates begin accruing the leave on
their first day of employment. The act also specifies that employers may give their
employees more paid sick leave or give sick leave at a faster rate than the law
requires.
The act requires that employees exempt from federal law’s overtime pay
requirements (e.g., certain salaried or managerial employees) be presumed 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. (Prior law did not explicitly address this issue.)
Under the act, employees maintain and may use their accrued paid sick leave
when (1) they transfer to a separate division, entity, or location with the same
employer or (2) a different employer succeeds or replaces an existing employer.
(Prior law did not explicitly address either of these issues.)
Leave Availability
Under prior law, employees had to work 680 hours for their employer before
they could use their leave. The act instead allows employees to use their leave
starting on the 120th calendar day of their employment. It also allows employees
to use the leave regardless of how much they work by eliminating a provision in
prior law that prohibited employees from using the leave unless they worked at
least 10 hours per week, on average, in the most recent complete calendar quarter.
Replacements
The act prohibits employers from requiring employees taking paid sick leave to
look for or find a replacement to cover the hours they were scheduled to work.
Leave Carry Over
The law entitles covered employees to carry over up to 40 unused accrued hours
of paid sick leave from one year to the next. Under the act, an employer may give
an employee an amount of paid sick leave that meets or exceeds the act’s O L R P U B L I C A C T S U M M A R Y
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requirements and is available for the employee to use immediately at the beginning
of the next year, instead of carrying over the unused paid sick leave.
Other Employer-Provided Leave
The paid sick leave law deems an employer in compliance with its requirements
if the employer offers other paid leave (e.g., vacation or personal days) that the
employee can use for the same reasons allowed under the paid sick leave law and
that accrues at the same or greater rate. The act further (1) requires that employees
also be able to use the other paid leave under the same conditions for the exception
to apply and (2) specifies that “other paid leave” includes unlimited paid time off.
§ 3 — LEAVE USES & DOCUMENTATION
Leave Uses
The act expands the reasons why an employee may use sick leave to include
when the employer’s place of business or a family member’s school or place of care
is closed by a public official’s order due to a public health emergency.
It also allows for leave if the employee or a family member is under quarantine
(i.e., when the employee or family member poses a risk to others’ health due to
their exposure to a communicable disease, regardless of whether they 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.
The law allows an employee to use paid sick leave for preventative medical
care for themselves or a covered family member. The act further specifies that this
includes preventative care for mental or physical health.
The law also allows an employee to use paid sick leave if he or she or the
employee’s child was a victim of family violence or sexual assault and needs leave
to do certain things (e.g., get counseling or participate in civil or criminal
proceedings). The act 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.
Employee Notice and Documentation
Under prior law, if an employee’s need for paid sick leave was foreseeable, an
employer could require the employee to provide up to seven days’ advance notice
about it. If the leave was not foreseeable, the employer could require notification
from employees as soon as practicable. The act eliminates both of these provisions,
leaving the law silent on the issue.
If a leave lasts for at least three consecutive days, prior law also allowed
employers to require employees to provide documentation to support their reasons
for taking leave. The act instead prohibits employers from requiring their
employees to provide any documentation that they are taking the leave for a reason O L R P U B L I C A C T S U M M A R Y
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allowed by the law.
§ 6 — EMPLOYER NOTICE AND RECORDS
The law requires employers to notify employees about certain provisions of the
paid sick leave law when they are hired (e.g., how leave accrues and may be used).
Prior law allowed them to meet this requirement by displaying a poster in the
workplace, but the act instead requires them to do so. It also requires employers to
give each employee written notice about these provisions by January 1, 2025, or
when an employee is hired, whichever is later. The act requires the labor
commissioner to create a model poster and written notice and make them available
to employers on DOL’s website.
If the employer does not maintain a physical workplace, or an employee
teleworks or works through a web-based or app-based platform, the employer must
meet the notice requirement by sending the information through electronic
communication or conspicuously posting it on a web-based or app-based platform.
The act eliminates a provision in prior law that required the commissioner to
administer the notice requirements within available appropriations.
The act 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 these
paid sick leave records for three years and give the labor commissioner access to
them, with appropriate notice and at a mutually agreeable time, to monitor
compliance with the act’s recordkeeping requirements. Failure to do so is a
violation of the act.
As under existing law, employers found by a preponderance of the evidence to
have violated these notice and recordkeeping provisions are liable for a civil penalty
of up to $100 for each violation (CGS § 31-57v).
Lastly, the act allows the labor commissioner to adopt regulations to implement
the paid sick leave law. Prior law only allowed her to adopt regulations about the
law’s notice requirements.
§ 8 — FY 25 BUDGET-RELATED PROVISIONS
The act requires the labor commissioner to ensure that DOL’s necessary wage
enforcement duties and responsibilities for the paid sick leave law are performed
within available appropriations for FY 25.
It also prohibits the OPM secretary, during FY 25, from reducing any
expenditures, allotment requisitions, or allotments in force, as otherwise allowed
under the biennial budget act (PA 23-204) and other law, for DOL’s wage
enforcement agents.
§ 7 — TASK FORCE
The act creates a task force to study establishing a paid sick leave tax credit for
employers with five or fewer employees. The task force must study the feasibility
of establishing the tax credit, including whether or how to mitigate any expenses O L R P U B L I C A C T S U M M A R Y
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these employers incur due to the paid sick leave law. It must submit a report on its
findings and recommendations to the Labor and Public Employees Committee by
January 1, 2025, and end on that date or when it submits the report, whichever is
later.
Under the act, the task force consists of six members, with one appointed by
each of the six legislative leaders. Task force members may be state legislators. The
appointing authorities must make all initial appointments within 30 days after the
act is enacted (i.e., by June 20, 2024) and fill any vacancy.
The act requires the House speaker and Senate president pro tempore to select
the task force’s chairpersons from among the task force members. The chairpersons
must schedule and hold the first meeting within 60 days after the act is enacted (i.e.,
by July 20, 2024), and the Labor and Public Employees Committee’s administrative
staff must serve that role for the task force.
BACKGROUND
Family Child Care Providers and PCAs Who Collectively Bargain With the State
State law allows certain family child care providers and PCAs to collectively
bargain with the state over their reimbursement rates, benefits, payment procedures,
contract grievance arbitration, training, professional development, and other
requirements and opportunities. Covered child care providers include those paid by
the state’s Care 4 Kids program to provide day care in (1) licensed family child care
homes or (2) their own homes for the children of neighbors or relatives. Covered
PCAs include those who provide personal care assistance to a consumer under a
state-funded program (e.g., the Medicaid Acquired Brain Injury Waiver Program,
Medicaid Personal Care Assistance Waiver Program for adults with disabilities, or
Connecticut Home Care Program for Elders).
Related Act
PA 24-147, § 7, exempts violations of the paid sick leave law from an additional
$300 civil penalty imposed for violations of the state’s wage and employment
regulation laws.