Effective August 8, 2014 Massachusetts employers are required to inform employees of their right to unpaid leave under the Act Relative to Domestic Violence or ARDV. This law allows employees to take up to 15 days of unpaid leave in each rolling 12-month period to address issues directly related to abuse. Covered employees are those who have been victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, kidnapping or stalking. In addition, employees can take leave under ARDV when the victim of the abuse is a spouse, parent, child, grandparent, grandchild or sibling.
Many Massachusetts employers are choosing to display a labor law poster with the required language, while others are updating their employee handbook, or doing both. The MA Domestic Violence Leave law applies to employers with 50 or more workers. At this point, it’s not clear whether that’s 50 employees in the state of Massachusetts or 50 employees nationwide.
This far-reaching law allows employees to take time off under a number of different circumstances. For example, a male or female victim of domestic violence can take time off to find alternate living arrangements and move. Victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, kidnapping or stalking can take time off to obtain an order of protection or to serve as a witness in legal proceedings related to the crime.
Before taking ARDV, an employee must exhaust all paid leave, including sick time, paid vacation and personal leave. Employees must provide advance notice of time off under ARDV whenever possible, but if the employee or covered relative is in imminent danger, advanced notice is not required. If the employee is unable to provide notification, it can be given by a family member, counselor, therapist, member of the clergy or certain other professionals.
Employers can require documentation to support a claim to ARDV leave such as a court document, police report, conviction, medical documents or a sworn statement from a victim advocate or other professional. Employees are entitled to return to a substantially equivalent job with similar pay and benefits after ARDV and employers cannot discipline employees for taking such leave, or retaliate against them.
