San Diego Earned Sick Leave and Minimum Wage Ordinance

Published on June 17, 2016

After the San Diego City Council initially tried to implement an ordinance in 2014 creating a citywide minimum wage and earned sick leave allowance for workers, business groups were able to push the initiative to the ballot. Fast forward two years to 2016 when 63 percent of San Diego voters supported it, to the chagrin of those businesses.

San Diego Earned Sick Leave Accrual, Usage, and Caps

Employees who work at least two hours in a year within the geographic boundaries of San Diego will accrue one hour of earned sick leave for every 30 hours worked. Earned sick leave begins to accrue at the commencement of employment, and workers can use their available time after the ninetieth calendar day of their employment.

Earned sick leave can be used to attend to the physical or mental health needs of the worker or family members, or for “safe time” to contend with sexual assault or stalking of the worker or a family member.

Workers can use up to 40 hours of accrued time in a year, but employees must allow unused hours to carry over to the subsequent year.

Consequently, the Ordinance will become effective “almost immediately” – however, that is yet to be defined. The Ordinance called for a minimum wage raise last January 2016 to $10.50 – which will become effectively “almost immediately.” The Ordinance also included employers to provide Earned Sick Leave (synonymous with Paid Sick Leave). This will also become effective “almost immediately.”

San Diego Minimum Wage Rate and Schedule

San Diego minimum wage workers will earn $10.50 per hour “almost immediately”, and then $11.50 per hour beginning January 1, 2018. After that, the City will adjust the rate based on changes to the cost of living.

San Diego Minimum Wage and Earned Sick Leave Posting and Notice Requirements

The San Diego ordinance includes a posting requirement for both the minimum wage and earned sick leave, which may be part of one poster, but the GovDocs Compliance and Research team will confirm that with the City. The posting is required in English and in any other language spoken by at least five percent of workers at a job site. The ordinance requires that employers update the posting every year.

Additionally, employers must provide new hires with the notice at the time of hire, but that notice can be distributed electronically.

GovDocs City and County Posting Coverage

Employers with multiple locations across the country know how difficult it is to keep up with the surge in city and county labor laws. Not only does your business need to address the wage and benefit impacts that minimum wage and paid sick leave laws impose, but you also need to adhere to all the posting and notice requirements.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could at least get the posting compliance part of your job off your plate?

But who can you trust? After all, labor law postings affect both compliance and employee relations issue. That’s a pretty important project to entrust to just anyone.

Maybe that’s why North America’s largest employers trust GovDocs to provide ongoing labor law posting compliance for more than 300,000 workplace locations in the U.S. and Canada, covering more than 4 million workers.

That includes City and County labor law postings. Automatically. With GovDocs, whenever a new local law is passed or updated, each of your locations stays compliant, your workers stay informed, and you get to focus on other projects in HR.