Paid Sick Leave Legislation Ammended to Exempt Employers with Less Than 10 Employees

This week the New Jersey Senate voted to amend S-799 with the following updates:

• Exempt employers with fewer than 10 employees
• Clarifies
  that an employee begins to accrue sick leave when the employee commences
  employment and shall be eligible to use the earned sick leave beginning on
  the 100^th calendar day after the employee commences employment,
  unless the employer agrees to an earlier date

We expect this bill to be heard on the floor and voted on sometime next week TAKE ACTION  NOW – ask your Senator to oppose mandating paid leave!

S799 would:

• Require
  businesses with more than 10 workers to offer at least 72 hours of leave (1 hour is accrued for each 30 hours worked)
• Allow
  only employees who have been employed for 100 days to utilize sick leave. This
  is an increase from 90 days. This change was intended to prevent seasonal
  employees from utilizing sick time. The bill was also amended to narrow the definition
  of “family member.”
• Preempt
  municipalities from creating their own sick leave laws, with the exception of
  the ten municipalities who already passed their own paid leave ordinances.  

The
Assembly
version of the bill
is similar but allows towns to implement local paid sick leave laws, which is a
point of contention and the primary reason the bill hasn’t passed. The fight
over preemption is expected to continue during this legislative
session.

NFIB continues to oppose this mandate, and will
push for a complete exemption for employers who provide paid time off, and will advocate
for full state preemption.  The Governor is expected to veto the bill if
it passes both houses.

Please watch for email alerts asking you to take
action by contacting your legislators about this important issue.

What you need to know about mandated paid sick leave