Families First Coronavirus Response Act


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Congress Expands Paid FMLA Leave
 
 
On  March 18, the president signed into law the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, which allows free COVID-19 testing, establishes paid and unpaid leave programs, provides grants to states to process and pay unemployment benefits, expands food service initiatives and increases federal Medicaid funding. The law takes effect April 2.

The leave provisions of the Act apply to employers with fewer than 500 workers. Because pharmacies are not covered by the definition of health-care workers that are excluded from its provisions, the law applies to all independent pharmacies. The new law requires that you provide job-protected paid leave to employees for up to 12 weeks for a COVID-19-related absence.

  • A worker eligible for benefits under the new law is any employee who has worked for you at least 30 days. 
  • An eligible employee can take emergency leave when he/she is unable to work or telework due to a need to care for a child under the age of 18 or when the child's school or daycare provider is closed or unavailable due to a declared emergency with respect to COVID-19.
  • The first 10 days of leave are unpaid. An employee may also use accrued paid leave -- such as vacation days or PTO (or emergency paid sick leave, described below) -- during that period.
  • After the first 10 days, employers must pay FMLA leave at not less than two-thirds of the employee's regular rate of pay for the number of hours the employee would otherwise have worked. An employee's compensation is capped at $200 per day and a total of $10,000. After the $10,000 maximum is reached, the remainder of the leave (up to 12 weeks) is unpaid.
More on How Employees Qualify
Employees qualify for emergency paid sick leave if they are unable to work or telework because:
  • The employee is in self-isolation due to a federal, state, or local quarantine or isolation order related to COVID-19 (this presumably includes government-issued  shelter-in-place orders);
  • The employee has been advised by a health-care provider to self-quarantine due to concerns regarding COVID-19;
  • The employee is experiencing symptoms of COVID-19 and is seeking a medical diagnosis;
  • The employee is caring for a person who is subject to a quarantine or isolation order related to COVID-19 or who has been advised by a health-care provider to self-quarantine due to concerns regarding COVID-19; or
  • The employee is caring for a child of the employee whose school or daycare provider is closed or unavailable due to COVID-19 precautions.

Uploaded via media manager.Employee Notice Requirement
You are required to notify employees of the new leave provisions by displaying this poster (shown at right) in your workplace. if you have employees who are working remotely, are out sick or are at home caring for children or other family members, you must satisfy the notification requirement for each of those employees by doing one of the following:

  • emailing or direct-mailing the notice to each employee or
  • posting the notice on an on internal or external employee information website.

For more information about employee notification requirements, please see the U.S. Department of Labor's Q&A page on employee notification.

Although the purpose of the law is to provide some level of financial protection to lower-paid workers
who are adversely affected by the COVID-19 crisis, we understand very well that these requirements potentially impose new financial burdens on you during a time of great difficulty. We recommend these two websites as good sources of information about the new law: