Archive for May 2017

Colorado Sick Leave, Vacation Pay and Paid Time Off Laws Colorado employers do not have any local or state laws that require mandatory sick leave, but there are some specific rules regarding vacation leave and other types of leaves that employers should understand. The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of Colorado…

Colorado Family Care Act Created to Expand FMLA Rules The Colorado Family Care Act (FCA) was signed into law on May 3, 2013 by Governor Hickenlooper. The law was created under the premise that the State of Colorado legislators wanted to create additional coverage for employees above that which was provided by the Federal Family…

Alaska Sick Leave Laws Employers across the United States have seen local cities and states enacting additional employment and labor laws. This has often made it costly and expensive for businesses to balance compliance, especially when located in multiple states. In the last 12 months alone, the country has seen additional Family Medical Leave Laws…

Rhode Island Parental Family Medical Leave Currently several states have started offering family medical leaves. Three states offer paid family medical leave including California, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island. However, Rhode Island’s’ Parental Family Medical Leave Act (RIPFML) provides up to 13 weeks of unpaid leave with the possibility that part or all…

Rhode Island has many Leave Laws Employers Must Comply With Employers in Rhode Island must be able to navigate through a myriad of leave laws, both paid and unpaid. Rhode Island has three main leaves that provide a form of paid sick leave. Although Rhode Island doesn’t have a mandatory sick leave law, the Temporary…

Rhode Island increases minimum wage while preempting local minimum wage. Rhode Island first started increasing the state’s minimum wage in 2004 when it increased minimum wage to $6.75.  Then in 2014, the State raised minimum wage again to $8 an hour, which increased again in 2015. In the same legislation Rhode Island also preempted local…

Local Sick Leave Laws are Preempted by State Law In 2011, Milwaukee voters passed a paid sick leave law, the third in the country behind San Francisco and Washington DC. The new ordinance was set to provide up to 9 days of paid sick leave to any employee within Milwaukee’s city limits. However, the local…

Tennessee Preempts Minimum Wage and Sick Leave In 2013 Tennessee enacted bill HB 0501 or Public Chapter 91, a preemption against local employment laws. As the fight for $15 and the movement for paid sick leave gained traction, more states would follow with preemptive laws including Oklahoma, Wisconsin and Missouri. However, the specifics of each…

Missouri Passes Its Second Preemptive Minimum Wage Bill In 2015 when both St. Louis and Kansas City were looking at local employment law changes, Missouri State Legislatures became concerned about a hodgepodge of employment laws across the state. The legislature passed Bill HB 722, a “Revised Statute to Chapter 285 Employees and Employers Generally.” HB…

Two Year Battle Over Minimum Wage Pauses In 2015 when the St. Louis Minimum Wage Ordinance was passed, it was soon to become part of a larger controversy. At the same time as the ordinance, state leaders passed a preemptive minimum wage and sick leave law, prohibiting local governments from passing local employment laws. However,…