Processing Your Payment

Please do not leave this page until complete. This can take a few moments.

April 15, 2020

What employers must know about emergency employment laws

Cohen & Wolf principal Stuart Katz leading Monday’s Shoreline Chamber webinar.
By Michael C. Bingham

As small and not-so-small businesses try to stagger to the finish line of the coronavirus crisis and the resulting economic shutdown, most of the attention has been on the federal Paycheck Protection Program, the low-interest SBA loan initiative that promises companies quick cash if they keep their workforces intact until happy days are here again.

But employers must also pay careful attention to other emergency legislation governing how they manage workforces idled by the pandemic.

On Monday afternoon the Shoreline Chamber of Commerce hosted a webinar with Stuart Katz, principal with the law firm of Cohen & Wolf, on “What Employers Need To Know” to help them manage their workforces through the crisis. Katz has practiced employment law, representing both employers and employees, for nearly three decades.

Katz focused on federal legislation that became effective April 1: the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA), which incorporates the Emergency Paid Sick Leave Act (EPSLA) and the Emergency Family & Medical Leave Expansion Act, informally known as “enhanced FMLA.” 

These laws establish new parameters for how employers may treat workers whom the company does not need due to the business slowdown or shutdown as a consequence of the pandemic. The laws also cover how employers should handle those workers who have been personally impacted by it.

Katz called the FFCRA “an extraordinary piece of legislation,” in no small part because “it went from non-existence to implementation in about two weeks. So we’re all trying to figure this out at the same time,” he added.

Applicable to all U.S. employers with fewer than 500 employees, it guarantees employees up to 12 weeks of pay (following the first two weeks, which are unpaid) at two-thirds their regular pay rate up to $200 daily, or $10,000 total.

The Emergency Family & Medical Leave Expansion Act (which, unlike the “regular” FMLA, does apply to companies with fewer than 50 employees), guarantees salary and benefits to workers who must care for a minor (due to school closings) or sick family member during the medical crisis, and are also unable to work remotely for the duration of the crisis.

The Emergency Paid Sick Leave Act features broader eligibility guidelines for employees, Katz explained. Workers qualify for EPSLA if they are subject to quarantine, symptomatic, caring for an infected household member or a minor child who is home due to school closings.

If the employee is sick or subject to quarantine, Katz explained, he/she is eligible to receive full pay for two weeks, with a cap of $511 daily, or wages up to 80 hours for an hourly worker. The benefit for workers caring for a sick household member or homebound minor child is capped at $200 a day for the 12-week duration of paid benefits.

EPSLA benefits, Katz underscored, are available only to workers who are still actively employed — not furloughed or laid off. “Any [employee] who was furloughed or laid — not eligible,” Katz explained.

Katz also distinguished between the latter two states of employment: A furlough is a temporary reduction of work hours (including to zero) for a worker who remains an employee; while a layoff is a legal termination of employment with no promise or expectation of return to employment by the company.

Katz also emphasized that, since the FFCRA legislation was drafted and enacted in such haste, there are ample ambiguities and areas of subjectivity that will be clarified only with the passage of time.

“Once the virus blows over and things get back to whatever normal looks like,” said Katz, “I expect there’s going to be a lot of litigation over some of these issues.”

Then again, that’s why we have lawyers, right?

Sign up for Enews

Most Recent

Most Recent

0 Comments

Order a PDF