Sweeping Changes to California Family Rights Act
On January 1, 2021, SB 1383 went into effect, ushering in significant changes to the California Family Rights Act (“CFRA”). Most notably, CFRA now applies to all businesses with five or more employees. Previously, it applied only to employers with 50 or more employees, consistent with the Family and Medical Leave Act (“FMLA”).
Some of the other important changes to CFRA under SB 1383 include:
Expands qualifying reasons for CFRA’s family care leave to include more family members for whose care an employee may take CFRA leave;
Adds “qualifying exigency” leave related to military service of certain employee family members;
Provides twelve weeks of baby bonding leave to each parent when both parents work for the same employer;
Eliminates an employer’s ability to refuse to reinstate a “key employee.”
If you were not previously subject to CFRA, but have five or more employees, you are now required to provide employees with job-protected family and medical leaves of absence. We recommend that you:
Adopt a CFRA policy that is current with the recent amendments to the law.
Prepare CFRA-related forms for your HR or managers to use when an employee qualifies for CFRA leave.
Determine how you will administer employee leave moving forward.
If you have 20-49 employees, note that the New Parent Leave Act was repealed and replaced with this law.
If your company was already subject to FMLA/CFRA prior to SB 1383, we recommend that you:
Update your CFRA forms and policy to reflect the CFRA amendments.
Revise your employee handbook to reflect the CFRA amendments.
Author: Caitie Emmett, Associate
The Maier Law Group is a boutique employment and data privacy firm that specializes in conducting workplace and Title IX investigations, providing executive coaching, training employees, mediating both courtroom and workplace disputes (between two conflicting employees), and advising and counseling employers on HR and data privacy issues.
This article has been prepared for general informational purposes only and does not constitute advertising, solicitation, or legal advice. If you have questions about a particular matter, please contact the Maier Law Group directly at info@maierlawgroup.com.