St. Paul Implements New Employee Sick and Safe Time (ESST) July 1, 2017

Employers in St. Paul with 24 or more employees must begin offering paid Employee Sick and Safe Time effective July 1, 2017.  All other employers with less than 24 employees must comply with the new law by January 1, 2018.

What is Sick and Safe Time

Sick time is paid time off that employees may use for medical reasons such as physical or mental illness, injury or other health related conditions.  The time off includes medical appointments to diagnose, care for and treat such health conditions

Safe time is paid absence due to domestic abuse, sexual assault or stalking.

The St. Paul ESST Act covers employees for such situations that pertain to them individually as well as to their family members.

Who is Covered

The law covers all workers within the city limits of St. Paul.  This includes full-time, part-time, temporary and on-call workers.  As mentioned above, the act applies to all businesses with 24 or more employees beginning July 1, 2017 and will include all size businesses on January 1, 2018.  In all situations, employers may not retaliate against workers when they use available time.

How Hours Are Accrued

 Beginning July 1, 2017, all existing employees will begin to accrue one (1) hour for every thirty (30) hours worked up to forty eight (48) hours per year.  For all employees hired after July 1, 2017, accrual will begin on the employees first day of work.  Employees will accrue and carry over hours from year-to-year and can “bank” up to eighty (80) accrued hours at any given time.

Posting Requirement

All businesses within St. Paul must display the new Employee Sick and Safe Time law poster.

Employers are also required to display specific state and federal labor compliance laws, all of which are available on the all in one Minnesota Labor Law Poster.

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.