Earned Paid Sick Time on Missouri’s 2024 Ballot: What Employers Need to Know

On Election Day, Nov. 5, Missouri voters will have the opportunity to vote on Proposition A and decide whether Missouri will become the next state to require employers to provide eligible employees with earned paid sick time (PST). Here are the details of Missouri’s PST law as it is currently proposed.

Rules for Accrual, Use, and Carryover of PST

If the measure passes, the following rules for the accrual, use, and carryover of PST would apply:

Accrual rate: PST will accrue at a rate of one hour for every 30 hours worked. PST will begin accruing for existing employees on May 1, 2025, or on the first day of employment for those hired after that date. Employees will be entitled to use PST as soon as it is accrued. Salaried exempt employees are presumed to work 40 hours per workweek for the purposes of PST accrual, unless their normal workweek is fewer than 40 hours, in which case PST accrues based on their normal workweek.

Maximum accrual: Accrual of PST will not be limited.

Maximum use: Employers with 15 or more employees may limit an employee’s use of PST to 56 hours per year. Employers with fewer than 15 employees may limit an employee’s use of PST to 40 hours per year.

Carryover rules: Employers must allow employees to carry over at least 80 hours of unused PST from year to year.

Use increments: Employees will be able to use PST “in the smaller of hourly increments or the smallest increment that the employer’s payroll system uses to account for absences or use of other time.”

Frontloading: Rather than using the accrual method, employers may frontload PST to employees at the beginning of the year. The amount of PST to be frontloaded is the amount each employee is expected to accrue in the year. If frontloading PST, employers may pay out unused PST at the end of the year instead of allowing carryover.

Combination with Paid-Time-Off Policies

Employers with paid-time-off (PTO) policies that provide an annual or accrued amount of PTO sufficient to meet the accrual requirements of Missouri’s PST law, and that may be used for the reasons set forth in Missouri’s PST law, are not required to provide additional PST beyond what is already provided under their PTO policies.

Qualifying Reasons for Leave

An employee may use PST, upon oral or written request, for absences due to the following:

• Care of self—the employee’s own physical or mental illness, injury, or health condition; “need for medical diagnosis, care, or treatment”; or need for preventive medical care.
• Care of a family member—the employee’s need to care for a family member with a physical or mental illness, injury, or health condition who needs medical diagnosis, care, or treatment or who needs preventive medical care.
• Public health emergency—the “closure of the employee’s place of business by order of a public official due to a public health emergency”; the “employee’s need to care for a child whose school or place of care has been closed by order of a public official due to a public health emergency”; or the employee’s need to “care for oneself or a family member when it has been determined by the health authorities … or a health care provider that the employee’s or family member’s presence in the community may jeopardize the health of others because of [their] exposure to a communicable disease.”
• Safe leave—the employee’s or employee’s family member’s need to seek medical attention, services from a victim services organization, psychological or other counseling, relocation, or legal services due to domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking.

A “family member” is defined more broadly than in the federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) to include:

• A child, regardless of age, including a biological, adopted, or foster child, stepchild or legal ward, child of a domestic partner, or child to whom the employee stands or stood in loco parentis.
• A parent, including a biological, foster, stepparent, or adoptive parent or legal guardian of an employee or employee’s spouse or domestic partner, or an individual who stood in loco parentis when an employee or an employee’s spouse or domestic partner was a minor.
• A spouse or domestic partner, or an individual with whom the employee is in a continuing romantic or intimate relationship.
• A biological, foster, adoptive, or stepgrandparent of the employee or employee’s spouse or domestic partner.
• A biological, foster, adoptive, or stepgrandchild of the employee or employee’s spouse or domestic partner.
• A biological, foster, adoptive, or stepsibling of the employee or employee’s spouse or domestic partner.
• A person for whom the employee is responsible for providing or arranging health or safety-related care.

Employee Notice Requirements

When the use of PST is foreseeable, employers may require employees to “make a good faith effort to provide notice of the need [for leave] in advance of the use” of PST and to “make a reasonable effort to schedule the use of [PST] in a manner that does not unduly disrupt” the employer’s operations. When the use of PST “is not foreseeable, an employer may require an employee to provide notice … as soon as practicable.”

Employers “may require reasonable documentation” that PST has been used for a purpose covered by the PST law when an employee uses PST for “three or more consecutive workdays.” Employers “may not require that the documentation explain the nature of an illness, details of underlying health needs, or details of the domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking.”

Employer Notice Requirements

Employers requiring notice of the need to use PST when the need is not foreseeable must provide written policies containing the procedures for providing notice.

Employers will be required to provide employees with written notice about PST within 14 days of the commencement of employment or on April 15, 2025, whichever is later. The notice must be provided on a single 8.5 inch by 11 inch piece of paper in a font no smaller than 14 points and include:

• Notification that beginning on May 1, 2025, employees will accrue and are entitled to PST at the rate of one hour of PST for every 30 hours worked.
• Notification of the prohibition to retaliate against employees who request or use PST.
• Notification that employees have the right to bring a civil action if the PST law is violated by a denial of PST or by retaliation for exercising rights under the PST law.
• Contact information for the Missouri Department of Labor and Industrial Relations (DOLIR).

Beginning April 15, 2025, employers will also be required to display a poster containing the same information listed above.

Right to Bring a Civil Action

It will be considered unlawful for employers “to interfere with, restrain, or deny the exercise of, or the attempt to exercise, any right” under the PST law. It will also be unlawful for an employer to retaliate or discriminate against an employee because the employee exercises rights protected under the PST law. Additionally, it will be considered unlawful for an employer’s attendance policy to count PST as an absence that may lead to or result in discipline, discharge, demotion, suspension, or another adverse action.

Employees may bring a civil cause of action for violations of the PST law within three years of the violation without first filing any administrative complaint, and if a court finds a violation has occurred, employees may recover the amount of any unpaid PST, actual damages, liquidated damages equal to twice any unpaid PST, costs, and reasonable attorneys’ fees, as well as other legal or equitable relief, such as reinstatement and back pay.

The DOLIR may also investigate compliance with the PST law and impose fines for violations. Additionally, employers that willfully violate the PST law could be held criminally liable.

What’s Next?

Employers with staff working in Missouri may want to familiarize themselves with the proposed law ahead of Election Day and begin reviewing their current PTO or PST policies to ensure they are ready to comply if Proposition A is approved.

Mallory Stumpf Zoia is an attorney with Ogletree Deakins in St. Louis. © 2024 Ogletree Deakins. All rights reserved. Reposted with permission.