BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SB 406
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Date of Hearing: August 19, 2015
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Jimmy Gomez, Chair
SB 406
(Jackson) - As Amended June 1, 2015
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Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program: NoReimbursable: No
SUMMARY:
This bill expands unpaid family and medical leave provided under
the California Family Rights Act (CFRA). Specifically, this
bill:
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1)Provides that the CFRA law applies to any person who directly
employs 25 or more employees. (Existing law applies to
employers with 50 or more employees).
2)Amends the definition of "child" to include the son or
daughter of a domestic partner and deletes provisions
regarding the age and dependent status of a child.
3)Expands permissible leave to include leave to care for a
sibling, grandparent, grandchild, parent-in-law, or domestic
partner with a serious health condition.
4)Removes an exception when both parents are employed by the
same employer, thereby requiring the employer to grant each
employee up to 12 weeks of leave individually rather than
between both parents, as currently provided in existing law.
FISCAL EFFECT:
1)General Fund administrative costs to the Department of Fair
Employment and Housing (DFEH) of approximately $700,000, for
seven additional positions to process an estimated 500 to 700
additional CFRA complaints.
2)The impact to other state agencies is expected to be minimal
since the state generally provides this benefit already. The
Department of Developmental Services (DDS) notes the bill
could have an impact on providers who would likely ask for
unanticipated rate adjustments as a result of the bill. DDS
indicates they would likely grant the request, assuming the
providers can document the bill's impact to their costs. These
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costs are difficult to predict however, as it is no known how
many providers would take advantage of the expanded leave.
COMMENTS:
1)Background. The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) is the
federal law that provides up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to
covered employees. The FMLA covers all public-sector workers
and private sector workers who work for employers with 50 or
more employees on the payroll or within 75 miles of the
worksite. In addition, employees must work for at least 12
months and worked 1,250 hours or more for the same employer in
the year preceding the leave. CFRA is the state law version
of the federal FMLA, and is enforced by the DFEH.
Under current law, CFRA allows an employee who has worked at
least 1,250 hours to take up to 12 weeks of leave in a
12-month period for their own serious medical condition, for
the birth or adoption of a child, or to care for the serious
medical condition of a child (under 18 years of age or adult
dependent), spouse or parent. The current definition of a
"parent" includes step-parents, as well as those individuals
who stand in place of a parent to the child.
2)Purpose. According to the author, over 40 percent of the
workforce is not eligible for CFRA and the restrictions on
family caregiving under CFRA fail to account for the diversity
of California households and the importance of caregiving by
extended family members.
The current definition of family under CFRA includes minor or
adult dependent children, parents, spouses, and registered
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domestic partners. Recently, the definition of family members
for Paid Family Leave (PFL), a program that allows workers to
receive partial wage replacement benefits while taking care of
seriously ill family members, was expanded to include
siblings, grandparents, grandchildren, and parents-in-law.
This bill seeks to include these family members under CFRA,
allowing employees to take job-protected leave when utilizing
their PFL benefits.
Supporters contend a worker should not have to choose between
caring for their family and keeping his or her job. Yet that
is the choice many must face without job protected family
leave. According to a 2011 study, among those who were aware
of PFL and needed leave but did not apply for benefits, 37
percent said they did not apply because they feared they would
be fired or face other negative consequences at work. An
expansion of CFRA ensures that more employees will be able to
use their PFL benefits without fear of losing their job.
3)DFEH impact. Increased protections under this bill could lead
to discrimination and increased workload to DFEH to process
complaints.
According to 2014 data from the California Employment
Development Department, there are just over 9.4 million
employees working at businesses covered by CFRA. DFEH
estimates this bill will expand CFRA to approximately
1,763,000 employees not covered under current law.
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In 2014, the DFEH received 3,913 CFRA complaints, of which,
2,000 were taken in for investigation. Assuming similar
complaint patterns, DFEH estimates the new law could generate
approximately 380 additional complaints.
The bill also extends coverage to children of domestic
partners and expands the law to allow employees to leave work
for care of a grandparent, grandchild, sibling or domestic
partner who has a serious health condition. These expanded
categories could lead to an additional 130 to 330 complaints
annually.
4)Opposition. A coalition of employers, including the California
Chamber of Commerce, are concerned this bill will place an
undue burden on businesses who will have to train and hire
temporary employees to cover workload, pay an existing
employee a higher wage to take on more work, or suffer
decreased productivity until the existing employee returns
from leave.
Opponents also argue that California already has extensive
family-related protected leaves of absence including the
following: Paid Sick Leave (applicable to all employers and
includes employee and family members); Kin Care (applicable to
all employers and allows employees to use half of paid time
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off for family members' illnesses); California Family Rights
Act (applicable to employees with 50 or more employees and
provides 12-week leave of absence for employee's medical
condition, family members medical condition, or to bond with
new child); Pregnancy Disability Leave (applicable to
employers with 5 or more employees and provides 4 months of
protected leave that is in addition to CFRA's 12 weeks);
School Activities Leave (applicable to employers with 25 or
more employees for 40 hours per year to attend school related
activities of a child). They contend that imposing another 12
week leave of absence on employers with only 25 employees is
too much for many of these small employers to manage.
5)Prior legislation. SB 770 (Jackson), Chapter 350, Statutes of
2013 expanded the definition of family to include in-laws,
siblings and grandparents.
Analysis Prepared by:Misty Feusahrens / APPR. / (916) 319-2081
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