Update Applicable to:
All employers with 50 or more employees in the state of Illinois.
What happened?
In a previous communication, we notified you that Governor Pritzker signed Senate Bill 3120 (SB 3120), also known as the “Family Bereavement Leave Act,” into law.
What are the details?
Effective January 1, 2023, SB 3120 expands the protections afforded under the Child Bereavement Leave Act (the “CBLA”). Under the existing CBLA, Illinois employees are entitled to use a maximum of two weeks (10 work days) of unpaid bereavement leave for the following reasons:
- to attend the funeral or alternative to a funeral of a child;
- make arrangements necessitated by the death of a child;
- or grieve the death of a child.
The CBLA defines “child” as an employee’s son or daughter who is a biological, adopted, or foster child, a stepchild, a legal ward, or a child of a person standing in loco parentis.
The amended CBLA, now titled the Family Bereavement Leave Act (“FBLA”), broadens the scope of the CBLA by expanding the availability of unpaid bereavement leave to cover additional family members and reasons for leave. The FBLA provides for bereavement leave for the death of a “covered family member,” which now includes an employee’s child, stepchild, spouse, domestic partner, sibling, parent, mother-in-law, father-in-law, grandchild, grandparent, or step-parent.
The FBLA also provides that employees are entitled to this leave due to the following:
- A miscarriage;
- An unsuccessful round of intrauterine insemination or an assisted reproductive technology procedure (such as Invitro Fertilization);
- A failed adoption match or adoption that is not finalized because another party contests it;
- A failed surrogacy agreement;
- A diagnosis that negatively impacts pregnancy or fertility; or
- A stillbirth.
Importantly, while an employer may require the employee to provide documentation supporting the leave request, the employer cannot require, as a condition of exercising rights under the Act, the employee to identify to which category of the event the leave pertains.
For more information, please see the links below:
Previous Vensure Communication (June 21, 2022)
What do employers need to do?
Employers should review the links provided above and make immediate adjustments to their bereavement leave policies so that, come January 1, 2023, they will comply with the law.
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