Wash your hands: how to balance Massachusetts earned sick time and the FFCRA

With the COVID-19 outbreak, there are many strange new considerations: stay-at-home advisories, social distancing, and the closure of nonessential businesses' physical workplaces. In working to manage the rocky path for your business, the public emergency also has made you concerned about your employees' health. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, and other entities have issued many recommendations about how to prevent the coronavirus from spreading, but what if the illness affects one of your own employees?

COVID-19 toolkit: bleach and paid leave

Massachusetts law generally requires employers to provide employees with earned sick time up to 40 hours per year. For employers with more than 11 employees, the time must be paid. As outlined in the statute, the leave covers illness, injury, and/or medical appointments. On top of the state law, the federal government has enacted the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) containing the Emergency Paid Sick Leave Act (EPSLA) and the Emergency Family Medical Leave Expansion Act (EFMLEA), effective April 1, 2020.

The EPSLA provides two weeks (up to 80 hours) of paid leave, in some circumstances covering 100% of an employee's regular rate and in other cases two-thirds of the rate, for one of the following six reasons: