California becomes second state to guarantee paid sick leave

The state of California has extended paid sick leave to millions of workers who would not normally have access to it, making it the largest expansion of its kind to date.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - California's Democratic governor, Jerry Brown signed the bill on September 10, making California the only state besides Connecticut to have a sick-leave mandate in law.

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The new law requires that employers allow workers to accrue one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours that they work, to be capped at three days per year or at the discretion of the employer.

"Whether you're a dishwasher in San Diego or a store clerk in Oakland, this bill frees you of having to choose between your family's health and your job," Brown said in a statement.

Brown's office estimates that this new mandate will bring paid sick leave to up to 6.5 million Californians who currently don't have access to it. The bill passed in both chambers of the statehouse by wide margins in August, and the law will go into effect July 2015.

Currently the United States does not have a federal law that guarantees paid sick leave for workers, and the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that 40% of American workers don't have a sick leave plan.

Recently, many employers have been voluntarily providing paid sick leave plans, but a large number of local governments have also begun passing mandates to assure that more low-wage workers are covered, such as in New York, San Diego and Portland.

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