San Francisco Paid Sick Leave Update

We previously posted about the new paid sick leave ordinance and poster here. There are subtle differences in the language between the ordinance and poster, intended to "clarify" the ordinance. For example, employers may be surprised to know that San Francisco's Office of Labor Standards Enforcement takes the position that paid sick leave must accrue when any employee performs work in San Francisco, even if only temporarily. Once the employee works 30 hours in San Francisco, no matter the time it takes to do so, the employee accrues an hour of paid sick leave. On the other hand, the employee is entitled to take paid sick leave only when scheduled to work in San Francisco.

So, for example, assume an employee based in Oakland comes into San Francisco for a two hour meeting. The employer must track that time so that the employee earns sick leave after 28 more hours performing work in San Francisco. Other examples - a delivery driver spends 3 hours out of 8 delivering in San Francisco per day, or a salesperson whose territory includes San Francisco and others. In each case, the employer is responsible for toting up the hours worked in SF and crediting one hour's sick pay for each 30 hours of work within the City and County of San Francisco.

Obviously, employees who do not regularly work in SF will not accrue much sick time, and probably won't have much opportunity to take it. But this will be a recordkeeping nightmare. The ordinance is effective on 2/5. Get ready!