Premium Paid Family Leave Laws Survey

As 2020 draws to a close, one of the employment law topics that will be front and center in 2021 is paid leave. Long-term federally-mandated paid leave legislation affecting private employers continues to elude lawmakers on Capitol Hill. Perhaps 2021 will be the year that a paid leave bill is finally passed. If it is, Seyfarth will be there every step of the way.

In the meantime, states and localities have taken paid leave into their own hands and continue to expand their patchwork of complex mandates that create compliance challenges for even the most well-intentioned employers. Now, joining the Firm’s highly regarded Premium Paid Sick Leave Laws Survey, Seyfarth is proud and delighted to announce the inaugural version of its Premium Paid Family Leave (“PFL”) Laws Survey.

The Seyfarth Premium PFL Survey is available to subscribing clients and contains comprehensive summaries of all existing state and local PFL and paid family medical leave (PFML) laws and ordinances, broken into more than 30 substantive topics. If and when a federal paid family leave mandate gains traction, it will be swiftly incorporated into the Premium PFL Survey.

2020 saw PFL developments in a number of jurisdictions. These include California, Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Washington, and Washington, D.C. Most recently, Colorado voters passed a broad PFML law in November 2020. In January 2021, the Massachusetts PFML benefits become available to eligible workers and the Connecticut PFML payroll deductions begin. Seyfarth’s Premium PFL Survey covers each of these major developments, and more.

The more than 30 substantive topics covered by the Premium PFL Survey include, but are not limited to: (1) Effective Date; (2) Employee Eligibility; (3) Employer Coverage; (4) Calculation of 12-Month Period; (5) Covered Reasons; (6) “Family Member” DEF; (7) Intermittent Leave; (8) Use Waiting Period; (9) Amount of Leave; (10) Amount and Type of Pay; (11) Claim Filing Process; (12) Job Protection; (13) Interplay with Employer Paid Leave Policies; (14) Interplay with Other Laws: (15) Notice and Posting; (16) Recordkeeping; (17) Funding Mechanism; (18) Reporting and Remitting; (19) Private Plans; (20) Impact on CBAs; (21) Penalties. Each topic comes with citations to the applicable law, ordinance, or administrative guidance responsible for the corresponding summary.

The survey is current as of December 15, 2020.

New versions of the survey will be rolled out to registered clients every quarter. The next three updates will take place and be distributed as follows: (1) 2021 Q2 - Between March 15 - April 1, 2021; (2) 2021 Q3 - Between June 15 - July 1, 2021; and (3) 2021 Q4 - Between September 15 - October 1, 2021.

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