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Law360 (April 10, 2020, 7:32 PM EDT) -- San Jose and San Francisco officials have approved policies ordering large corporations that are exempt from the federal government's COVID-19 paid sick time mandate to fund two weeks of leave for a large swath of workers impacted by the pandemic, according to records from city council meetings.
The U.S. government's March coronavirus relief package only guaranteed two weeks of pandemic-related paid time off to employees of companies with over 50 and less than 500 employees. Experts speculated that the law — called the Families First Coronavirus Response Act — wouldn't go far enough to protect America's workforce.
The paid-time-off ordinances passed by San Jose and San Francisco's city councils April 7 attempt to partially fill the gaps created by the federal law.
San Francisco's ordinance requires all companies with more than 500 employees to fund two weeks of coronavirus-related leave for every worker who has logged at least 56 hours of work in the city or county of San Francisco in the past year, unless that employee works in the health care field.
San Jose's ordinance goes further, directing both large corporations and small businesses to fund two weeks of coronavirus-related leave. It guarantees that paid time off to every employee in San Jose deemed an "essential worker," as long as they've worked at least two hours at a business within the city limits and are still required to go into work during the pandemic. The ordinance excludes employees who work from home.
Both ordinances consider gig workers and independent contractors part of the pool of employees covered by the ordinance. Those workers can receive the paid time off as long as they do work for a business covered by the ordinance.
The ordinances bring San Francisco and San Jose in line with Los Angeles and Emeryville, which have adopted similar measures.
San Jose's ordinance has gone into effect, the San Jose mayor's office confirmed Friday.
Spokespeople for the San Francisco mayor's office did not respond to a request for comment Friday on the status of the ordinance.
--Editing by Abbie Sarfo.
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