Berkeley Implements New Paid Sick Leave Law Effective October 1, 2017

Beginning October 1, employers holding business licenses within Berkeley, California, will have two significant labor law updates which carry mandatory posting requirements.

Minimum Wage

Berkeley’s current minimum wage of $12.53 per hour is scheduled to increase to $13.75 beginning October 1 which is one step away from the goal of $15.00 per hour by October 1, 2018.

Paid Sick Leave

The other major update is implementation of the new Paid Sick Leave law.  Under this law employees will earn one hour for every 30 hours worked.  Eligibility to use paid sick hours commences after 90 calendar days of employment and pertains to all employees who work at least two hours per week in Berkeley.

Employers with less than 25 employees are subject to slightly different standards in that their paid sick leave hours cap at 48 hours while all other employers sick leave benefits cap at 72 hours.

Paid sick leave can be used for:

• Physical/mental illness, injury or medical condition
• Obtaining a professional diagnosis or treatment for medical condition
• Other medical reasons such as pregnancy or obtaining a physical health exam

Posting Requirements

All businesses within the City of Berkeley must display the new Minimum Wage/Paid Sick Leave Poster within their business, along with the all-in-one California Labor Law Poster which includes all state and federal posting requirements.  Failure to post the Berkeley labor law poster may result in fines up to $500.

The Labor Law Center offers a worry-free service to our customers through our Poster Service Plan with automatic replacements.  What this means is that we monitor the state and federal postings and automatically send you updates when they are released.  It is that simple!

We also offer our clients our newly updated Education Center.  If you are new to labor law compliance or just wanting to keep up with the latest news and changes as they come out, this is the place to bookmark and visit regularly.