California COVID pay: Newsom signs bill extending paid COVID sick leave through 2022 | By The Perfect Enemy

The bill requires California companies with 26 or more employees to continue providing up to 80 hours of additional paid sick leave to employees unable to work because of COVID. It also covers sick leave for workers taking time off to care for infected family members.

Existing COVID sick-pay mandates were set to expire Friday.

Small businesses and nonprofits will remain eligible for grants up to $50,000 to help defray the cost of providing the supplemental paid sick leave.

Labor leaders cheered the extension, calling the bill a boon to workers who might otherwise face tough choices were they to become infected. State law only requires a minimum of three days of paid sick leave.

“For three years, essential frontline workers have been placed in situations where they have to choose between either going to work while sick, or staying home and risking their income and their job ,” according to SEIU United Service Workers West, a union that represents more than 45,000 California janitors, security officers and service workers.

“Without this safety net, they are often unable to follow public health advice and quarantine when sick or exposed, keep sick or exposed children home from school, care for sick family, get vaccinated, or recover from vaccine side effects without risking their job or pay,” the union said.

Unions and legislators pushed for the supplemental leave to be reinstated even as California’s COVID case numbers, hospitalizations and deaths continued to decline following a bruising summertime surge .

Nora Mishanec is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: nora.mishanec@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @NMishanec

#Children, #PublicHealth

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Published on The Perfect Enemy at https://bit.ly/3SteyY4.