As the results of the November 2016 election confirmed, there is a growing push throughout the country to require employers to provide certain types of paid leave to their employees. To date, we have witnessed the imposition of paid leave requirements through ballot initiatives, legislation, and executive orders. The most popular forms of paid leave currently being discussed include paid sick leave and paid parental leave. Some of the recent paid leave initiatives also cover things such as time off for child care under certain circumstances and domestic violence or other similar situations.
In terms of paid sick leave, voters in two states—Arizona and Washington—approved ballot initiatives last month requiring employers to provide paid sick leave to employees who work within those states. Arizona and Washington now join five other states (California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Oregon, and Vermont) and the District of Columbia, all of which currently require or soon will require employers to provide some type of paid sick leave to their employees. Several counties and municipalities throughout the country have also imposed such requirements on employers.
With respect to paid parental leave, as we previously noted, President-Elect Donald J. Trump has offered a proposal whereby employers will be required to provide their female employees with paid maternity leave. Male employees are not included in President-Elect Trump’s proposal. Should President-Elect Trump follow through on his proposal, it will be the first paid maternity leave mandated at the federal level for private employers. It will also follow similar requirements imposed, or promised to be imposed, in a handful of states (California, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Washington), the District of Columbia, and a few other major cities in the country (e.g., New York and San Francisco).
Notably, and consistent with the trends discussed above, Democrats introduced a bill in the Ohio legislature earlier this year that would have required employers to provide twelve weeks of paid family leave to Ohio employees. Although the bill did not garner much support in the Republican-dominated Ohio legislature, should Republicans at the federal level suddenly support President-Elect Trump’s paid leave proposal, or other similar proposals, there may be renewed interest amongst Republicans for similar legislation at the state level.
In summary, this year’s election should remind employers that paid leave requirements will likely be imposed upon them in the near future, if they are not already required to provide certain forms of paid leave to their employees now. With both political parties expressing support for paid leave requirements, future changes in this regard are highly probable.