Morristown, New Jersey Paid Sick Leave Effective January 11, 2017

Sick man in hospital

 

Effective January 11, 2017, Morristown, New Jersey workers will be eligible for paid sick leave.  This follows several other New Jersey cities who have implemented similar laws over the past couple of years.

Who is Eligible?

  All employees who work more than 80 hours per year in Morristown will be eligible, with a few exceptions.  Exclusions include the following:

  • City, state and federal employees
  • Employees of any New Jersey school district or Board of Education
  • Members of any construction union who are enrolled or have graduated from a registered apprenticeship and are covered by a collective bargaining unit

What Employers and Employees Need to Know?

 Accrual: Employers with 10 or more employees will accrue paid sick leave at the rate of one hour for every 30 hours worked, with a total of 40 hours accrued per year.  For employers with less than 10 employees, they, too, will accrue paid sick leave at the rate of one hour for every 30 worked, however, the maximum they can accrue per year is 24 hours.  One exception is that all childcare workers, home health care workers and food service workers, regardless of size, will accrue at the rate of one hour for every 30 worked with a maximum of 40 hours accrued per year. Some exclusions apply for workers covered by collective bargaining agreements.

Accruals for all existing employees will begin on January 11, 2017; all new hires accruals will begin on the first day of employment.

Existing employees are eligible to begin using accrued hours 90 days after the law begins on January 11, 2017.  Thereafter, all new hires are eligible to use hours after 90 days of employment.

Carry Over:  By city law, employees can carry over 40 hours from year-to-year with the exception of employers with less than 10 employees whose carryover rate is 24 hours per year.

Reason for Use:  Paid sick leave may be used for the following reasons:

  • Employees who need time to care for themselves as a result of mental or physical illness, injury or health condition
  • Employees who need to care for family member who needs medical diagnosis, care, treatment for physical or mental health condition
  • Employees of a business that closes due to a health emergency
  • Employees who need to provide care for a child whose school or care provider has a public health emergency
  • Employees who need to provide care for family members whose health could jeopardize that of the greater community

Employer Responsibility:

Employers must post the Notice of Employee Rights to Paid Sick Time in a conspicuous place.  In addition, they must provide the notice in written format to all employees upon commencement of the law and to every new hire thereafter.

Employers are obviously responsible for accurate record keeping of accruals and is not allowed to retaliate against workers who use the accrued hour.

The new Morristown Paid Sick Leave law joins other New Jersey cities with similar laws.  These postings, as well as the New Jersey All-in-One Complete poster package can be secured through the Labor Law Center.  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.

Bookmark the permalink