At least there’s still time before cold and flu season! Although many were hoping that it would end up delayed or dead, it’s happening: Effective July 1, employers in two Minnesota cities are required to provide earned sick and safe time to employees.
Minneapolis started the trend by passing the Sick and Safe Time Ordinance in May of 2016. In September, Saint Paul followed with its own Earned Sick and Safe Time Ordinance. The two local laws are similar in many ways: Both require employers to provide all employees (including part-time and temporary workers) who work at least 80 hours per year within the bounds of the respective city with at least 1 hour of paid time off for every 30 hours worked inside the city. This time can either accrue as the employee earns it, or be front-loaded at the beginning of the year.
Both ordinances also require that employees be allowed to use earned leave to secure the health or safety of the employee or a family member, for reasons related to mental or physical health; domestic abuse, sexual assault, or stalking; or the closure of a place of business, school, or place of care due to public health or inclement weather.
Finally, both ordinances are bound by the partial injunction issued by a Minnesota District Court in February of this year. As the stated intent of the law is to ensure the health and safety of workers within their respective cities, the ordinances were originally written to cover all employees who work even a few hours per week within the bounds of the city, regardless of the employer’s location. In response to a civil suit filed by the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce against the City of Minneapolis, Hennepin County Judge Mel Dickstein found that the ordinance as written “runs afoul of the City’s territorial reach” and issued a temporary injunction which prohibits the City of Minneapolis from enforcing the Ordinance against any “employer resident outside the geographic bounds of the City.”
In response to this decision, Minneapolis clarified that the City will limit their enforcement to employers resident within the city, at least for the time being. Saint Paul soon followed suit in agreeing to abide by the limits set by the injunction. (The Minnesota Chamber of Commerce has filed an appeal in hopes of obtaining an injunction against any enforcement of the Ordinance, but oral arguments will not begin until July 11 – after sick and safe time has gone into effect. Minneapolis, for its part, hopes that the partial injunction will be lifted so that the Ordinance can be enforced against all employers whose employees perform work within the city.)
There are some crucial points which distinguish the two ordinances, primarily in their accommodations for small businesses. Minneapolis requires all employers to provide earned sick and safe time as of July 1, 2017, but employers with 5 or fewer employees may provide the time off unpaid.
By contrast, Saint Paul will require all employers to provide paid time off, but employers with 23 or fewer employees are not subject to the ordinance until January 1, 2018. For employers with 24 or more employees, the Ordinance goes into effect on July 1, 2017. Saint Paul’s ordinance also makes an exception for new businesses by allowing them to provide unpaid sick and safe time for the first six months after the hire date of the employer’s first employee – after six months, sick and safe time must be paid.
You can review more in-depth information here for Minneapolis Sick and Safe Time and here for Saint Paul Earned Sick and Safe Time.
Minneapolis Notice Requirements
The Enforcement Guidance provided by Minneapolis states that “As of July 1, 2017, employers must display a Minneapolis Department of Civil Rights (MDCR)-provided workplace poster, within each of their facilities in Minneapolis in a conspicuous and accessible location. The poster should be displayed where employees can easily read it. Employers must display the poster in English and in each of the primary language(s) spoken by employees at the particular workplace.”
CPC currently provides a full-color, Poly Vinyl 8.5” by 11” version of the City of Minneapolis Sick and Safe Time Poster in English.
Saint Paul Notice Requirements
The Saint Paul Earned Sick and Safe Time Rules require each employer to develop and follow written policies which meet or exceed all of the requirements of the Ordinance, and to regularly provide these policies to employees. This can be done either by regularly distributing the written policies to employees through email, company newsletters, or employee handbooks, or by posting a notice permanently in the workplace.
Employers can also satisfy these requirements by posting the standard City of Saint Paul Earned Sick and Safe Time Poster in a noticeable place where notices to employees are typically posted. CPC currently provides a Poly Vinyl 8.5” x 14” version of this poster in English.
If an employer wishes to provide their own written notice, it must contain at a minimum the following information:
- Employees are entitled to ESST;
- When accrual starts;
- When an employee may begin using ESST;
- The rate at which an employee accrues ESST;
- The maximum number of hours an employee may accrue in a calendar year;
- How ESST carries over to the next year;
- The employer’s notice requirements for using ESST;
- If the employer has a requirement for documentation, the requirements for providing written documentation from a health care provider if ESST exceeds three days;
- Employer’s disciplinary policy for employees suspected of abusing ESST;
- That the employee can file a complaint with HREEO;
- That employer retaliation is prohibited and an employee may file a civil action for retaliation.
The Saint Paul rules also specify that “If the employer provides ESST at the beginning of the year in the form of front-loading, then the employer’s written ESST policy must specify this,” so front-loading employers are required to write their own individual policy.
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