BILL ANALYSIS Ó SB 579 Page 1 Date of Hearing: August 19, 2015 ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS Jimmy Gomez, Chair SB 579 (Jackson) - As Amended July 16, 2015 ----------------------------------------------------------------- |Policy |Labor and Employment |Vote:|6 - 1 | |Committee: | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |-------------+-------------------------------+-----+-------------| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |-------------+-------------------------------+-----+-------------| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------- Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program: NoReimbursable: No SUMMARY: This bill expands the reasons an employee can take job-protected time off from work under the Family School Partnership Act and specified "kin care" sick leave provisions of existing law. Specifically, this bill: SB 579 Page 2 1)Expands the law to allow workers to take time off to: (a) find, enroll, or reenroll his or her child in a school of with a licensed child care provider; and (b) to address a child care provider or school emergency, as defined. 2)Defines "child care provider or school emergency" to mean that an employee's child cannot remain in school or with a child care provider due to one of the following: a) The school or child care provider has requested that the child be picked up, or has an attendance policy, excluding planned holidays, that prohibits the child from attending or requires the child to be picked up from the school or child care provider. b) Behavioral or discipline problems. c) Closure of unexpected unavailability of the school or child care provider, excluding planned holidays. d) A natural disaster, including, but not limited to, fire, earthquake or flood. 3)Revises provisions of the existing "kin care" law to be consistent with the provisions under recent paid sick days legislation to clarify that "family member" includes a parent, guardian, stepparent, foster parent, or grandparent of, or a person who stands in place of a parent to a child. Further clarifies that the worker can take sick leave for the reasons currently specified in law. SB 579 Page 3 4)Prohibits an employer from denying sick leave or discriminating against an employee for attending to an illness or the preventive care of a family member. FISCAL EFFECT: The Department of Industrial Relations indicates minor/absorbable costs related to implementation and enforcement of this bill. COMMENTS: 1)Background. The California School Partnership Act allows parents, grandparents, and guardians to take up to 40 hours per year to participate in their children's school or child care activities. The law is applicable to employers with 25 or more employees. Employees can use existing vacation, personal leave, compensatory time off or take unpaid leave for these purposes. Current law, also known as "Kin Care" authorizes employees to use up to one-half of the sick leave that they accrue annually, to take time off to care for a sick family member. Employees do not receive additional sick leave under Kin Care. Instead, sick leave taken under Kin Care is protected and may not be "counted against" or used as a basis for disciplining an employee for absenteeism, for example. The Healthy Workplaces Healthy Families Act provides, as of July 1, 2015, an employee who works in California for 30 or SB 579 Page 4 more days within a year from the commencement of employment is entitled to paid sick days at the rate of not less than one hour per every 30 hours worked (to be taken after the 90th day of employment). The Act allows workers to use paid sick days for the diagnosis, care, or treatment of an existing health condition of, or preventive care for, the employee or the employee's family member (defined as a child, parent, spouse, registered domestic partner, grandparent, grandchild and sibling) or specified purposes, as defined, for an employee who is a victim of domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking. 2)Purpose. This bill amends the California School Partnership Act to allow parents to use leave to care for a child during a child care or school emergency, and to take job-protected time off from work to find (and enroll) child care or school for their children. This bill also amends the Kin Care law to more closely align with the Healthy Workplaces Healthy Families Act by allowing parents to use their sick days to take their family members to a preventative health appointment. This bill does not increase the amount of time off parents are entitled to under these laws, but rather expands the permitted use of those laws to cover child care emergencies and enrollment. Analysis Prepared by:Misty Feusahrens / APPR. / (916) 319-2081 SB 579 Page 5