TIDBITS, TRICKS & TRAPS
CALIFORNIA'S PAID FAMILY LEAVE PROGRAM -FLUKE OR TREND?
On September 23, California Governor Gray Davis signed into law paid family leave legislation, making California the first state to adopt such a program. The Family and Medical Leave Act ("FMLA"), a federal law, only requires employers to provide unpaid leave in family medical situations.
Under California's program, most workers would be entitled to about 55% of their salary for up to six weeks of leave taken to care for a sick relative, spouse, or domestic partner. Workers may also take leaves to bond with a new child, adopted child, or foster child.
The program expands California's disability insurance system and will be funded entirely by employee payroll deductions (up to $70/year) beginning in January 2004. Workers will be allowed to begin taking the paid leaves in July of 2004. The maximum payment will be $728 a week.
Business groups are critical of the new law, claiming it is especially harsh on smaller businesses (which are not exempt as they are under the FMLA). The question for employers in other parts of the country is whether California's law is a fluke or a trend. Advocacy groups claim that similar paid family benefit bills are pending in 27 other states. (Alabama is not currently included in that number.)
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