On April 19, 2016, the Los Angeles City Council voted 13-1 to pass a motion that directs the City Attorney to draft an ordinance requiring employers to provide employees who work for them in the City of Los Angeles for 30 or more days within a year from the commencement of employment with 48 hours of paid sick leave per year. The ordinance will be modeled after California’s Healthy Workplaces, Healthy Families Act (the “Act”) but will provide employees with twice as much paid sick leave as required under the Act. According to a report issued by the City Council’s Economic Development Committee, the sick leave ordinance will require employers to provide 48 hours of leave per calendar year, either up front or accrued at the rate of one hour for every 30 hours worked. In addition, the ordinance will require employers to allow employees to take sick leave to care for family members and will broadly define family members as “any individual related by blood or affinity whose close association with the employee is the equivalent of a family relationship.” While accrual can be capped under the ordinance, paid sick leave accrual can be capped at 72 hours, rather than 48 hours as provided under the Act. However, for an employer who has a paid leave or paid time off policy or provides payment for compensated time off that is equal to or greater than 48 hours, no additional time is required.

Pursuant to amendments adopted at the April 19th meeting, (1) implementation of this paid sick leave law will be delayed for one year for businesses with 25 or fewer employees and (2) the City Attorney is to report back on providing businesses with the option of requiring employees to provide documentation after taking more than three consecutive days of sick leave.

While final approval by the City Council is still pending, backers of the ordinance hope the ordinance will become effective on July 1, 2016 – the same day as Los Angeles’s City Ordinance raising minimum wage for employees in the city of Los Angeles becomes effective.