March 12, 2024
Will Employee Benefits Depend on Whether Embryos Have Legal Rights?
There's still a lot of tension between the people who think Covid is no big deal anymore and those who do. There are also the dueling realities that most of the population has some immunity now (either through past infection or vaccination) and that Covid can still cause serious damage to a person's body, including death.
California is considering legislation that would require employers to provide pay and benefits to employees out with Covid. I'm sure the thinking is that it would encourage employees not to show up to work sick and generally protect the rest of the employer's workforce from catching it. This is a good thing.
And if Covid is really over, then it should have little or no impact on employers. If not, maybe a better approach is to require more paid sick leave to protect people from Covid and everything else. We'll see what happens.
On February 16, 2024, California Assembly Member Pilar Schiavo (D-40) introduced legislation (Assembly Bill (AB) 3106) that would require the California Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board to adopt a standard that ensures workers in California continue to receive their pay and benefits while excluded from the workplace due to testing positive for or displaying symptoms of COVID-19.
Quick Hits
Background
Past versions of California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) COVID-19 regulations in both 2020 and 2021 had required employers to provide pay and benefits when employees were excluded from the workplace because of a COVID-19–positive test or symptoms. Those requirements were dropped from the current California COVID-19 Prevention Non-Emergency Standards but have reappeared in the text of AB 3106.
Proposed Labor Code Revisions
AB 3106 would add Sections 9255–9257 to the Labor Code. Under proposed Section 9255, the term “COVID-19 case” is defined as “a person who has a positive COVID-19 test that has been approved or granted an emergency use authorization by the United States Food and Drug Administration to diagnose current infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus.”
Proposed Labor Code Section 9256 would require that symptomatic COVID-19 cases be excluded from the workplace until the following specific return-to-work requirements are met:
Employers would be required to continue and maintain the earnings, wages, seniority, and all other employee rights and benefits, including an employee’s right to his or her former job status, for any employee excluded from the workplace due to testing positive for, or presenting with the symptoms of, COVID-19. The proposed payment requirement’s only exception would be when an employee received disability payments or was covered by workers’ compensation and received temporary disability.
Proposed Labor Code Section 9257 would direct Cal/OSHA to enforce the provisions by issuing citations and civil penalties.
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