OR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday March 21, 2024
SENATOR KUSHNER WELCOMES COMMITTEE PASSAGE OF EXPANDED PAID SICK LEAVE BILL
HARTFORD – State Senator Julie Kushner (D-Danbury) today celebrated the Labor Committee passage of her signature legislation for the session: expanding Connecticut’s decade-old paid sick leave law from covering only about 12% of the state workforce to covering nearly all 1.7 million working people in Connecticut.
Senate Bill 7, “AN ACT CONCERNING CONNECTICUT PAID SICK DAYS,” is a legislative priority this session for the majority Senate Democratic Caucus, which represents two-thirds of all state Senate districts, or about 2.4 million people.
The bill passed the Labor and Public Employees Committee today on a purely partisan party-line vote – with all Republicans voting “No” – and now heads to the Senate floor for further consideration before the legislative session ends at midnight on May 8.
“This is simply good public policy. Just like we don’t send our kids to school when they’re sick, employees shouldn’t be showing up for work when they’re sick either,” Sen. Kushner said. “It’s also a pro-family policy. These changes strengthen working families, not only to take the time necessary to care for themselves and each other, but to provide some modicum of income for when they’re not working and need some money to help buy groceries or gas.”
Right now, Connecticut’s 13-year-old paid sick leave law applies only to private-sector employers with more than 50 employees, mostly in “service worker” occupations –or only about 12% of Connecticut’s entire private-sector workforce.
Senate Bill 7 re-defines who is covered under Connecticut’s 2011 paid sick leave law to include anyone working in Connecticut. Senate Bill 7 allows employees – retroactively to October 1, 2023 – to accrue one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours they work, and it can be used effective on the 100th day of their employment. The proposed sick leave update can also be used not only for an employee’s illness, but also for their time away from work to care for the illness of a family member.
Currently, eight states and Washington, D.C. require paid sick leave for any business with one or more employees: Arizona, California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Vermont and Washington.