HIA Archive: California Healthy Families, Healthy Workplaces Act of 2008

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HIA Archive : California Healthy Families, Healthy Workplaces Act of 2008

California Healthy Families, Healthy Workplaces Act of 2008
Authors: Human Impact Partners and San Francisco Department of Public Health
Date: July 30, 2008

Links HIA Report: Healthy Families, Healty Workplaces Act of 2008 Background Reports: Paid Sick Days- California Contact Rajiv Bhatia, MD, MPH 1390 Market Street, Ste. 822 San Francisco, CA 94102 415-252-3982 Email:

Summary of the HIA *

Policy or Project
California Assembly Bill 2716, the Healthy Families, Healthy Workplaces Act of 2008, would require employers to provide paid sick leave that workers could use to recover from illness, care for a sick family member, or recover from domestic violence or sexual assault.

As currently drafted, AB 27176 entitles an employee who works in California for seven or more days in a calendar year to accrue paid sick time at a rate of no less than one hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours worked, up to a maximum of 9 days per year. After 90 days of employment, an employee would be entitled to use accrued sick time for diagnosis, care, or treatment of health conditions of the employee or an employee's family member, or for leave related to domestic violence or sexual assault. An employer would be required to meet posting and record-keeping requirements and would be prohibited from discriminating or retaliating against an employee who requests paid sick time. The bill would not apply to employees covered by a collective bargaining agreement that provides for paid sick leave. The California Department of Industrial Relations would administer and enforce these requirements.

At the time of this HIA, AB 2716 had passed out of the California State Assembly was being considered by the California State Senate. If passed by the Senate, the bill will require the approval of the Governor before becoming law.

Background ** and Policy Context
Internationally, 137 countries mandate paid annual leave and 121 countries guarantee two weeks of leave or more. Regarding paid sick leave specifically, 145 countries require employers to provide paid sick days or leave for short- or long-term illnesses, and 127 countries provide a week of paid sick leave or more annually (Heymann et al. 2007b). In contrast, however, with the exception of the City and County of San Francisco, there is no right to paid sick days in the United States. Such benefits, where available in the U.S., are provided voluntarily by employers.

A number of U.S. state and local jurisdictions are now considering laws to require employers to provide paid sick days benefits to all employees. The California state legislature is currently considering such a bill, AB 2716—the Healthy Families, Healthy Workplaces Act of 2008 , sponsored by Assemblymember Ma.

Scope and Methods
Evidence utilized in this HIA includes existing statistics regarding employment and health conditions as well as new qualitative and quantitative research conducted specifically for this assessment. Specific methods included: development of logic frameworks, review of existing secondary data sources and empirical literature, focus groups, surveys of workers, and interviews with health experts

The analysis focused on six research questions:

What is the availability of paid sick days in relationship to need and health status?
Is the availability of paid sick days associated with taking sick days to recover from illness or care for a dependent?
What is the effect of paid sick days on recovery from illness, primary care utilization and preventable hospitalizations for workers with and without paid sick days?
What is the effect of paid sick days on recovery from illness, primary care utilization and preventable hospitalizations among dependents of workers and without paid sick days?
What are the effects of paid sick days on communicable disease transmission in workplaces and other community settings?
What are the effects of paid sick days on wage loss, risk of job loss and employer retaliation?

Summary of findings
The HIA identified a number of economic benefits associated with providing paid sick day benefits to workers. Cost-benefit analyses revealed that although employers must bear the initial financial burden of providing paid sick days, the financial benefits outweigh this burden because ultimately, sick day benefits increase productivity by reducing worker absenteeism, reducing the cost of employee turnover and increasing the ability for employers to recruit and retain employees.

Updated 6/23/2009

* The HIA-CLIC website and this summary were developed by the UCLA Health Impact Assessment (UCLA-HIA) Project with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Every effort has been made to ensure that these summaries are factually accurate. HIA authors have been given an opportunity to review summaries before posting. HIA authors may notify us of any factual inaccuracies or updates by filling out a Request for Update form (click for pop-up form).

** Readers interested in more detail, including literature citations, for the background summarized here are encouraged to view the full HIA report (see external link above), or to review the relevant Pathway section of HIA-CLIC.