By Shehzad Rajwani and Lucia Passanisi

This past November Massachusetts voters approved a law that allows Massachusetts employees to earn and use accrued sick time. This law, which will take effect on July 1, 2015, will impact both small and large businesses. Employees who work for employers with eleven or more employees are permitted to earn and use up to 40 hours of paid sick time for each calendar year. Employees who work for employers with fewer than 11 employees, on the other hand, may earn and use up to 40 hours of unpaid sick time for each calendar year.

This sick time may be used in three scenarios:

1. to care for a physical or mental illness, injury or medical condition affecting the employee or the employee’s child, spouse, parent or parent’s spouse;
2. to attend routine medical appointments of the employee or the employee’s child, spouse, parent or parent’s spouse; or
3. to address the effects of domestic violence on the employee or the employee’s dependent child.

How will this law impact your business? Starting on July 1, 2015, employees will accrue one hour of sick time for every 30 hours they work and may begin using this sick time 90 days after they are hired. This means that employers should keep a careful record of the hours that their employees work. When employees use paid sick time, they must be compensated at the same hourly rate. Employees may carry over up to 40 hours of unused sick time to the next calendar year but may not use more than 40 hours per each calendar year.

While employers do have to pay for unused vacation time at the end of an employment relationship, employers do not have to pay employees for any remaining unused sick time at the time the employment relationship terminates. If you have a current sick policy, contract or benefit plan with greater sick time allowances than those in the new law, this law will not override those plans. Furthermore, any employer that has his or her own policy that grants as much paid time off, for the same purposes, and under the same conditions as the law does not have to provide any additional paid sick leave.

What must an employee do to use this sick time? Employees have to make a good faith effort to provide advance notice for the need to use earned sick time to their employers. Furthermore, if an employee uses sick time to cover more than 24 consecutive scheduled work hours, an employer could request a certification of the need to use this sick time. However, employers may not delay an employee from using earned sick time or withhold payment of sick time pending the certification. In addition, this law contains a retaliation provision, meaning that employers may not interfere or retaliate against an employee for using earned sick time; similarly, employers may not retaliate based on an employee’s support of an another employee’s exercise of earned sick time rights.

Employers should review their current sick policies and plans and implement necessary changes prior to July 1, 2015. While this law does not take effect until the summer, employers should also be aware that the minimum wage in Massachusetts has increased from $8.00 an hour to $9.00 an hour beginning on January 1, 2015. Minimum wage will continue to increase another $1.00 per year over the next two years.