Health Care Employee Pandemic Paid Sick Leave
On September 9, 2020, the City amended Chapter 9-4100 of the Philadelphia Code, entitled “Promoting Healthy Families and Workplaces.” This ensures that certain health care employees would be compensated if they contract a communicable disease during a pandemic or epidemic event, under certain terms and conditions.
Healthcare Organizations with 10 or more employees are required to provide eligible employees including pool employees with additional paid sick leave when they miss work and test positive for COVID-19 until they are able to return to work. This includes hospitals, nursing homes, and home health providers. This additional paid sick leave or Healthcare Epidemic Leave must be provided outside of and prior to the eligible employee’s accrued leave time.
In order to qualify for this additional Healthcare Epidemic Leave, the health care employee must have worked for the employer at least 40 hours in the three months prior to contracting COVID-19.
This additional Healthcare Epidemic Leave must be provided to eligible employees for the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic. While the national health emergency ended on May 11 2023, health officials are not saying the pandemic is over. The law expressly states that the Health Care Epidemic Leave requirements will remain in effect until the end of a declared pandemic.
If you experienced a violation of this law, you can file a complaint with the Philadelphia Office of Worker Protections or a lawsuit in a court of law within one year from when the violation occured.
File a complaint by submitting this Complaint Form via email to COVID19workplaceprotections@phila.gov or via mail to the Office of Work Protections, 100 S Broad St, 4th Floor, Philadelphia PA 19102. If you have any supporting evidence such as text messages or copies of emails, you should submit them with your complaint form. You can also file a complaint over the phone by calling the Worker Protection Hotline at (215) 686-0802. Language access is available.
COVID-19 Leave expires December 31, 2023
Read more about the expiration of this law in this blog post here.
From March 9, 2022 until December 31, 2023, employers with 25 or more employees must provide up to 40 hours of additional paid sick leave to eligible employees when they are unable to work for certain COVID-19 reasons, including:
- Care for self or family member showing symptoms of COVID-19.
- Care for self or family member exposed to COVID-19 in order to self isolate.
- Childcare or school closure.
- In order to receive a COVID-19 test, vaccine or recover from injury, disability or illness related to vaccination.
This paid sick leave must be provided outside of and prior to using the eligible employee’s existing accrued paid time off banks including for full time employees, part time employees, and union employees. COVID-19 Leave must be provided to employees immediately with no waiting period. An employer is permitted only to request that an employee submit a self-certified statement asserting that leave was used for COVID-19 Leave purposes.
*Review the law or contact our office for more information. Covered employers whose existing leave policies provide 120 hours or 112.5 hours or more of paid sick leave that can be used for the same purposes under the same conditions of COVID-19 Leave may not be required to provide additional paid sick leave.
If you experienced a violation of this law, you can file a complaint with the Philadelphia Office of Worker Protections or a lawsuit in a court of law within one year from when the violation occured.
File a complaint by submitting this Complaint Form via email to COVID19workplaceprotections@phila.gov or via mail to the Office of Work Protections, 100 S Broad St, 4th Floor, Philadelphia PA 19102. If you have any supporting evidence such as text messages or copies of emails, you should submit them with your complaint form. You can also file a complaint over the phone by calling the Worker Protection Hotline at (215) 686-0802. Language access is available.
Additional Information for COVID-19 Pandemic Paid Sick Leave
Retaliation by employers is illegal. Additional protections including providing notice of this protection are outlined in the resources below.
Employees can file a complaint about violations of paid sick leave during the pandemic with the Department of Labor by completing the complaint form below and emailing it to COVID19WorkplaceProtections@phila.gov or calling (215) 686-0802.
Employers can contact the Office of Worker Protections at the Department of Labor for compliance assistance. For more information or to ask questions, email COVID19WorkplaceProtections@phila.gov or call (215) 686-0802. Language access is available.
Workers may also be eligible for the City’s accrued paid sick leave, the FFCRA (PDF) for employees who work for employers with 499 or less employees, or other federal protections.