Illinois has enacted a new paid leave law, the Paid Leave for All Workers Act, providing for up to forty hours of paid leave for nearly all workers in the state. The law, which is scheduled to go into effect in 2024, will allow Illinois employees to accrue one hour of paid leave for every forty hours worked, ultimately guaranteeing forty hours of paid time off per year that an employee can use for any reason whatsoever.

     Illinois is the third state, behind Maine and Nevada, to enact such a law. The Illinois law is the most expansive, covering all employers—public or private—that have one or more employees in the state of Illinois, with certain exceptions for some state, federal, and unionized workers. Maine’s law governs employers with eleven or more employees while Nevada’s law is limited to employers with fifty or more employees in the state.

     While fourteen other states and Washington, D.C. have paid sick time laws, these leave laws are designed to support workers who need leave for health-related reasons. Both the Illinois and Nevada laws specifically provide that employees do not have to disclose the reason for their leave to their employer. Under the Illinois law, employers are precluded from requesting documentation to support the need for a leave. Further, the Illinois law requires only seven days’ advanced notice when the need for the leave is foreseeable. If the leave is not foreseeable, an employee must still provide notice, but is only expected to give enough notice “as soon as is practicable” once the employee is aware that the employee will need leave. The law also allows for leave in short increments of two-hour blocks, which has the potential to hamper normal business operations. Indeed, critics of the new law have already pointed out that it could have a detrimental impact on small businesses suffering from high interest rates and the aftereffects of the pandemic.[1]

     The law imposes a number of new obligations on employers including a recordkeeping requirement—mandating that employers track hours worked, leave accrued and taken, and the employee’s balance of leave for the prior three years—and a notice requirement, violations of which could result in a $500 penalty and additional penalties for subsequent violations. There is, however, no private right of action under the law. An aggrieved employee must file a complaint with the Illinois Department of Labor. The Illinois Attorney General may bring an action to enforce the collection of an award. Paid leave does not have to be paid out upon termination unless the employer credits the leave to a general paid time off bank or vacation account. Because the new law applies even if an employer has a single Illinois employee, employers with remote workers in Illinois need to be aware of their obligations.

[1] Claire Savage, Illinois enacts paid mandatory leave ‘for any reason,’ The Associated Press (March 13, 2023) https://apnews.com/article/mandatory-paid-leave-work-illinois-law-435fabf7f5ce88d9ca9f1df692dadc2d.