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.

Health care employers are required to provide certain health care employees and pool employees with paid sick leave when they miss work and test positive for COVID-19. This includes hospitals, nursing homes, and home health providers.

In order to qualify for this additional COVID-19 pandemic paid sick leave, the health care employee must have worked for the employer at least 40 hours in the three months prior to contracting COVID-19.

COVID-19 Leave

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.

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.