On November 5, 2024, Missouri voters passed “Proposition A,” increasing the state’s minimum wage and requiring Missouri employers to provide mandatory paid sick leave starting May 1, 2025.
Under Proposition A, Missouri employers must provide employees one hour of paid sick leave (“PSL”) for every 30 hours worked, and employees may carry over up to 80 hours of PSL every year. However, there are limits on how much PSL an employee can use in a year: employees may use up to 40 hours of PSL if the employer has fewer than 15 employees and employees may use up to 56 hours of PSL if the employer has 15 or more employees. Employers may provide for accrual over time or frontload PSL.
All employers should update their policies to satisfy the requirements of the new law, although employers may use their current paid time off policies to satisfy the new PSL requirements as long as they meet all the standards of the new law, i.e., accrual, carryover, use, notice, and record keeping.
Additional Requirements and Characteristics:
Mandatory Notice: Employers must provide written notice of the PSL policy to employees by April 15, 2025, or within 14 days of an employee’s date of hire, whichever is later. Eventually, there will be a standardized poster that will be required (similar to EEO policies). The law provides specific requirements for the notice. It must be on a single piece of 8.5×11 paper in no less than 14-point font and include the following information:
- employees will accrue paid sick time at the rate of 1 hour earned for every 30 hours worked
- employers are prohibited from taking retaliatory action against employees who request or use paid sick leave
- employees have a right to bring a civil action if paid sick leave is denied
- the contact information for the Department
Approved Uses. Employees may use PSL to care for their own physical or mental health, to care for a family member’s physical or mental health, to care for a family member during a public health emergency that causes the closure of schools or day care facilities, and, in certain circumstances, due to domestic violence, sexual assault or stalking.
Permissible Policies. Employers may establish and publish policies requiring employees:
- to make good faith efforts to provide advance notice of paid sick leave usage for foreseeable reasons;
- to follow notice procedures when the need to use paid sick leave is not foreseeable: and
- to provide reasonable documentation supporting the use of PSL, such as a note from a doctor or domestic violence case worker
Record Keeping. Employers must maintain records documenting hours worked and earned paid sick time taken by employees for at least three years.
Enforcement. The new law provides employees with the right to file a lawsuit if their employer fails to provide the required sick leave or the employee is retaliated against for exercising their rights under the new law. These lawsuits can include potential monetary penalties, double damages and payment of the employee’s attorneys’ fees.
Employers not subject to the Law: Most public employers and retail and service businesses whose annual gross volume sales made or business done is less than five hundred thousand dollars are exempt from the law.
Additional information is available on the Missouri Department of Labor Proposition A FAQ. Please let us know if you have any questions about compliance with the new law and stay tuned for any updates!