SB 579: Employees: time off.

(1)Existing law prohibits an employer who employs 25 or more employees working at the same location from discharging or discriminating against an employee who is a parent, guardian, or grandparent having custody of a child in a licensed child day care facility or in kindergarten or grades 1 to 12, inclusive, for taking off up to 40 hours each year for the purpose of participating in school activities, subject to specified conditions. Existing law requires an employee to provide documentation regarding these activities upon request by an employer and provides remedies to employees discharged, demoted, or in any other manner discriminated against as a result of his or her exercise of this right to take time off.

This bill would revise references to a child day care facility to instead refer to a child care provider. The bill would include the addressing of a child care provider emergency or a school emergency, as defined, and the finding, enrolling, or reenrolling of a child in a school or with a child care provider as activities for which a parent having custody of a child shall not be discriminated against or discharged, as described above. The bill would define parent for these purposes as a parent, guardian, stepparent, foster parent, or grandparent of, or a person who stands in loco parentis to, a child, thereby extending these protections to an employee who is a stepparent or foster parent or who stands in loco parentis to a child.

(2)Existing law requires an employer who provides sick leave for employees to permit an employee to use the employees accrued and available sick leave entitlement to attend to the illness of a child, parent, spouse, or domestic partner and prohibits an employer from denying an employee the right to use sick leave or taking specific discriminatory action against an employee for using, or attempting to exercise the right to use, sick leave to attend to such an illness. Existing law defines sick leave for these purposes as leave provided for use by the employee during an absence from employment for specified reasons, including, but not limited to, an employees inability to perform his or her duties due to illness, injury, or a medical condition of the employee. The Healthy Workplaces, Healthy Families Act of 2014 requires an employer, upon the request of an employee, to provide paid sick days for a victim of domestic violence or the diagnosis, care, or treatment of an existing health condition of, or preventive care for, the employee or the employees family member, which is defined as including, in addition to the above-described relatives, grandparents, grandchildren, and siblings.

This bill would instead require an employer to permit an employee to use sick leave for the purposes specified in the Healthy Workplaces, Healthy Families Act of 2014, would redefine sick leave as leave provided for use by the employee during an absence from employment for these purposes, and would prohibit an employer from denying an employee the right to use sick leave or taking specific discriminatory action against an employee for using, or attempting to exercise the right to use, sick leave for these purposes.