Posted 7:40 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 1, 2020
Employers providing emergency paid sick leave for employees.
In March, Congress passed the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, (FFCRA), which required employers to provide emergency paid sick leave for all employees and made provisions to extend the Family Medical Leave benefit to employees who may need to attend to childcare obligations when facilities are closed or childcare is unavailable.
The Office of General Counsel has recently notified UW System campuses that some of our student employees may be eligible for the emergency paid sick leave or emergency family medical leave components of the FFCRA. The paid sick leave component of the FFCRA provided up to 80 hours, pro-rated based on the employee’s actual schedule.
This Paid Sick Leave covers a variety of circumstances, including not being able to work due to:
- Quarantine or isolation, health care advised self-quarantine, as well as if you are experiencing COVID-19 symptoms and are seeking a medical diagnosis.
- Caring for an individual who meets any of the above or caring for a child whose school or daycare is closed due to COVID-19.
- If you have been unable to work due to any of the reasons above, we encourage you to submit a request for Emergency Paid Sick Leave via the Request for Emergency Leave Form.
Eligibility determinations for our student employees who are requesting paid sick leave will be based on:
- Whether or not the student employee had received the Income Continuation Payment in the Spring Term – they will be ineligible if they had received this payment;
- If they had been employed at the time they are requesting their leave; and,
- If there was actually work to be performed during the requested leave period.
The scope of the expanded Family Medical Leave is narrow; however, some students may still be eligible. Students may only apply if their dependent child(ren)’s school or daycare is unavailable due to COVID-19 precautions. Learn more here.