Seyfarth Synopsis: Santa Monica has amended its Minimum Wage Ordinance to postpone implementation of its paid sick leave entitlements, now starting January 1, 2017 instead of July 1, 2016, and create a two phase implementation process for both small and large employers.
Like many a trip to the beach, the journey of the paid sick leave portion of Santa Monica’s Minimum Wage Ordinance[1] has hit some last-minute snags. On Tuesday, April 26, the City Council accepted a package of amendment proposals. Within those proposals, instead of rushing to a July 1, 2016 implementation date of the previously adopted San Francisco-like 72-hour sick leave cap, the Council has decided that everyone should just chill out. The amended Ordinance will allow implementation to roll in like the tide, with the first wave of changes delayed to January 1, 2017, and a second wave coming in on January 1, 2018.
Under the first wave, small businesses (employers with 25 or fewer employees) must allow a rolling cap of 32 hours of paid sick time for employees, with larger businesses capped at 40 hours. The second wave will increase these caps to 40 hours for small businesses and 72 hours for larger businesses. Until January 1, 2017, Santa Monica employers can relax and continue to follow California law.
The accrual rate remains the same as required under California law (one hour for every 30 hours worked), but these accrual caps act as “point in time” caps, similar to the San Francisco ordinance. That is, Santa Monica employers would no longer be able to limit employee annual use to 24 hours after Jan 1, 2017. Instead, they will have to allow the use of whatever an employee has in his or her bank at any given time. The Ordinance also does not eliminate an employer’s obligations to follow the California statute where the California statute is more generous. So, at least until January 1, 2018 (when the accrual cap will increase to 72 hours for large employers), Santa Monica employers who provide sick time by the accrual method should still follow the 48-hour minimum accrual caps under state law. The updated proposal does imply that some kind of frontloading would be acceptable, but it’s not apparent yet how that would work. We hope that once the Ordinance itself is published, this issue will be made clear.
The Council has also reduced the period of time in which retaliation against an employee for exercising rights under the Ordinance will be presumed. The time, once 180 days, will now be 90 days (that that’s still three times longer than under the California law). So employers should be very cautious in taking actions against employees who take sick days, no matter how totally bodacious the surf report was for that day.
Please see here and here for more information. We expect the amended Ordinance to be available at any moment. In the meantime, please see your most tubular Seyfarth attorney for more information.
[1] The Ordinance is entitled “An Ordinance of the City Council of the City of Santa Monica Adding Chapter 4.62 to the Santa Monica Municipal Code Requiring a Minimum Wage for Employees, and Adding Chapter 4.63 to the Santa Monica Municipal Code Requiring a Living Wage to Hotel Workers.”