As Leaves Fall, Leave Requests Rise: Are You Compliant With Chicago’s Expanded Rules?

Joint employment occurs “when the essential terms and conditions of an employee’s work are controlled by two or more entities.” The rules provide useful guidance on interpreting the Ordinance where a joint employer relationship exists.

• • Joint employers may be distinct entities with separate owners, managers, and facilities, but under the Ordinance, those entities can be treated as a joint employer for a covered employee.

• • Joint employers are responsible for, separately and jointly, complying with the Ordinance.

• • Joint employer relationships can be formed with a temporary staffing agency, a lead agency, a professional employer organization, or the like.

• • Joint employers must transfer accrued paid leave when applicable. If your company is sold or taken over by a new employer, any paid leave or paid sick leave a covered employee has already earned must carry over. If that transfer does not occur, it is considered a violation of the Ordinance, and both the previous and new employers can be held responsible. If they are found to be joint employers, they share that liability together.

Employer-created leave policies and procedures that do not conflict with any federal or state law, rule, or regulation are recognized under the revised final rules.

• • An employer may establish a policy that allows covered employees access to accrue up to 80 hours of paid time off as long as it meets or exceeds all requirements of Section 6-130-030, including frontloading leave at the beginning of employment.

• • An employer may set different dates for each covered employee or synchronize all of its covered employees to have benefits granted at the same time.

• • Under the Ordinance, non-exempt employees, as defined by the Federal Labor Standards Act, accrue paid leave time on all hours worked—including overtime.

• • The accrual rate for a covered employee who is exempt from overtime requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) shall be capped at 40 hours per work week for purposes of paid leave and paid sick leave accrual.

• • The rules allow employers the right to permit their employees to use paid leave for “additional purposes” other than those articulated by the Ordinance.

• • Under the Ordinance, a covered employee is now permitted to use leave for the unscheduled closure of a child’s “place of care.”

• • • “Places of care” are broadly defined under the rules and include summer camps, afterschool programs, daycares, and also “providers outside of institutional settings and locations” (e.g., paid babysitters, family, and friends who supervise children when covered employees are working).

• • • The rules provide examples of an at-home babysitter canceling on a day when school is not in session, but a covered employee is scheduled to work. Also, another covered example would be the unplanned cancellation of an after-school program for the child of a covered employee who is scheduled to work.

• • Employers have the right to take action, including disciplinary measures up to termination, when a covered employee abuses paid sick leave or uses it for purposes outside those permitted under the Ordinance.