City of Chicago Paid Sick Leave Goes Into Effect July 1, 2017

Following suit with Cook County, the City of Chicago’s Paid Sick Leave law will go into effect July 1, 2017.  This follows numerous other cities and states which have implemented paid sick leave laws over the last few years to accommodate employee needs to take care of themselves and their families in the event of health issues, domestic violence and sexual assault situations.

Who is Covered

The Paid Sick Leave Law applies to all employers who maintain a business facility in the City of Chicago and/or those businesses which are required to hold a business license in the city.

Employees who work at least 80 hours within any 120-day period qualify for the paid sick leave benefits, including domestic workers, day labor, tipped workers and home health workers.

How Does It Work

 Employees will earn one hour of paid sick leave for every 40 hours worked.  Salaried workers will receive one hour for every week of employment.  The maximum number of hours an employee may accrue and use during any year is 40.  Employees may carry over up to half of their unused hours from year-to-year up to a maximum of 20 hours.

If the reason for absence is subject to the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA), the employee must be allowed to carry over up to 40 hours of unused paid sick leave in addition to half of all unused paid sick time, to be used exclusively for FMLA eligible purposes.

Accrual begins on the first calendar day after the starr of employment of on July 1, 2017, whichever is later.

Employer Responsibilities

Employers should consult the law to ensure that they comply with all employer responsibilities.  In addition, all businesses within the City of Chicago must display the new City of Chicago Paid Sick Leave notice within their business.

In addition, now is a good time to make sure that you are fully compliant with the all in one Illinois Labor Law Poster which includes all state and federal posting requirements.

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.