On Friday, July 1, Connecticut Governor Dannel P. Malloy signed the first mandated paid sick leave law in the United States. The law takes effect on January 1, 2012.

Under the law, employers with 50 or more employees paid on an hourly basis must provide one hour of paid sick leave for every 40 hours worked, as long as the employees meet certain requirements. Manufacturers, certain non-profit employers, day or temporary workers, and non-hourly employees paid on a salaried basis are exempt from the law.

“Without paid sick leave, frontline service workers – people who serve us food, who care for our children, and who work in hospitals, for example – are forced to go to work sick to keep their jobs,” said Governor Malloy in a statement after the bill passed in the Connecticut Senate. “That’s not a choice I’m comfortable having people make under my tenure.”

The sick leave may be used for the service worker or their spouse or child. Employers have the option to allow sick leave to be donated by one employee to another. Existing sick leave plans which meet or exceed the law’s requirements are considered to satisfy the mandate.

The full text of the law is available at the Connecticut General Assembly’s website here: http://www.cga.ct.gov/2011/ACT/Pa/pdf/2011PA-00052-R00SB-00913-PA.pdf.