labor lawAdivision of labor law center

While we’re on this new topic of sick leaves laws, the Family and Medical Leave Act, and other labor laws—state and federal—that have to do with how employers alloww their employees time off, we should cover a breaking news item out of the capital of Oregon, Salem. There, the state House just approved a bill this past Monday that would give workers the option of using their paid sick leave in a more flexible manner.

According to the new bill, workers could then use their paid sick leave days, given to them by their employers, in order to also do family leave type of things, such as taking care of little ones, or caring for a sick spouse, or taking family members to the doctor and such.

There is already a law in the books, from 1995, that allows people to take family leave from their jobs in order to take care of a sick child or a sick spouse, or to have a baby or recover from a serious health issue of their own. That’s the famous Family and Medical Leave Act that we’re always talking about here at this blog, and for which you have the FMLA poster in all of your work sites.

Under that law, however, the family leave time that is required by the government for employers to provide can be unpaid time off, unless that employee chooses to use their vacation time as paid time off. This new law, though, would allow employees in Oregon to use their paid sick time off for these family reasons (without having to lie about to an employer that might not be flexible and kind enough to already allow that).

The bill passed the House by the count of a 40 to 18 vote, but it still needs to go to the Senate and be voted on there before it can become a law.