The Illinois Department of Labor recently updated its FAQs for the upcoming Paid Leave for All Workers Act and touched upon the biggest issue keeping my TC colleagues and me (and our clients!) up at night: Does this Act apply to us if we already offer paid leave to our employees? We now kind of/sort of have an answer, and it appears to be good news! However, the IDOL left open the conversation with its parting words, so stay tuned for more.
My company already offers employees 40+ hours of paid leave. Does my policy need to comply with the other requirements of the Act? (See Section 20(b) of PLAWA)
If your company has an existing policy that meets or provides the minimum amount of leave required by the Act (40 hours) in a 12-month period and your employees can in fact take that amount of leave for any reason of their choosing, you do not need to modify the terms of your policy.IDOL expects to further clarify how existing policies meet expectations of the law in rulemaking.
