MAY. 19, 2015 • BY RYAN KEARNEY

Yesterday Attorney General Maura Healey announced her decision to issue safe harbor from the Massachusetts Paid Sick Leave Law for employers with existing paid time off policies. The safe harbor provides qualifying employers a six-month transition period before they must bring their policies into compliance with the requirements specified in the law. A copy of the announcement can be found here.

In order to be eligible to take advantage of the safe harbor provision an employer’s policy must be

in place as of May 1, 2015,
provide at least 30 hours of job protected paid time off during the 2015 calendar year, and
available to all workers—full-time and part-time; employers that currently have a policy for full-timers but not part-timers may add part-timers to the existing policy to qualify.
Employers taking the safe harbor will still have to bring their policies into compliance with the requirements of the law by January 1, 2016. Employers not meeting these criteria are required to adopt and implement a compliant policy by July, 1 2015.

This announcement was made prior to a public hearing on the AGO’s proposed regulations which may be found here. The hearing was one of six such events being conducted across the state to collect public input on the proposed regulations. A schedule of the remaining events may be found here. Interested parties may also submit written comments to the AGO via email at [email protected]. The period for public comment ends June 10th and the final regulations are expected to be published on June 19th.

RAM members with questions or concerns about this announcement or the proposed regulations are urged to contact our office at 617-523-1900 or via email at [email protected]. RAM will continue to monitor this issue and provide you with further developments as they become available.