Currently, California’s paid family leave program — which provides wage replacement benefits to workers who take time off work to care for certain seriously ill family members, to bond with a minor child, or to participate in a qualifying exigency — authorizes an employer to require an employee to take up to 2 weeks of earned but unused vacation before, and as a condition of, the employee’s initial receipt of these benefits.
A newly passed bill makes that authorization inapplicable to any disability commencing on or after January 1, 2025. In other words, employers may not require an employee to take 2 weeks of vacation time before receiving paid family leave benefits.
