Well this is disheartening.

The Department of Labor issued a new rule last week that essentially lets small businesses decide for themselves whether or not to give workers paid sick leave under the Congress's new law that sought to guarantee it. Essentially, they killed the new law.

The Families First Coronavirus Response Act sought to protect workers and families from losing income if they fell sick with COVID-19 coronavirus. It gives workers 2 weeks’ worth of paid leave. It gives workers 12 weeks of leave if their children are home from school or require child care, AND it reimburses employers with tax credits. That’s right, the leave would essentially be at no cost to employers. Great deal, right?

Well wrong I guess. Some employers did not want to deal with the law because they would have to wait for the tax credits in the future for the pay and benefits that they would have to pay workers right now.

And unfortunately, the law came with some exceptions: The FFCRA exempts businesses with over 500 employees. But more importantly, it provided that companies with fewer than 50 employees could ask the Department of Labor for an exemption if they believed the rule could bankrupt them. These are two important groups of employers because nearly 75% of workers are employed by companies with under 50 employees or over 500.

Last week, the Department of Labor has issued a rule that lets small businesses choose whether or not to give workers paid sick leave, rather than forcing them to go through a process to apply for a waiver. According to the rule, businesses with fewer than 50 employees can simply opt out and not pay workers for child-related leave if the worker's absence would "cause the small business to cease operating," if it would create "a substantial risk" to the business, or if the company cannot find a replacement "able, willing and qualified" to work. Again the issue isn’t with the standard per se, the problem is that employers don’t have to apply for the waiver; instead, employers can simply decide not to provide the paid leave on their own.

The point is that the new rule completely destroys much of the protection of the new law for employees of companies that have fewer than 50 employees.

This new rule appears to completely contradict the plain language of the law. And sadly, it may stand because there may not be time for it to challenged it in court quickly enough to make a difference. Therefore the only thing to do is to contact your senators and U.S. representative and let them know whether you support DOL’s action or not. If you are so inclined, here is a link to a page that will make it easy for you to contact your elected representatives.