Update Applicable to:
All employers who have five or more employees in Bloomington, Minnesota.

What happened?
In a previous communication, we notified you that the Bloomington City Council unanimously approved Ordinance No. 2022-31, the “Bloomington Earn Sick and Safe Leave Ordinance,” into law and will require employers in the city to provide paid sick and safe leave to most workers. This is an update to that communication.

What are the details?
On January 23, 2023, the Bloomington city council approved an earned sick and safe leave ordinance for workers at Bloomington businesses on June 13, 2022. The ordinance will go into effect on July 1, 2023.

Amendments to Bloomington’s sick and safe time ordinance clarify that employers can allow employees to accrue leave on a pro-rata basis rather than in whole-hour units; require to leave accrued and used to be on paystubs; institute fines for certain first-time violations; and establish fines for these and other violations.

Accrual
Like the other three local ESST ordinances in Minnesota, Bloomington requires accrual in whole-hour units rather than on a pro-rata basis. With an accrual rate of 1 leave hour for every 30 hours worked, if a new employee works 20 hours in their first week of employment, they do not accrue any leave during that specific week. Instead, they will not accrue their first hour of leave until they work 30 hours.

As amended, the “whole-hour” approach to accrual does not change, but the ordinance now provides that employers may choose to have employees accrue leave on a pro-rata basis.

New Paystub Requirement
Originally, the ordinance provided that if an employee made a request, an employer would need to provide information about the employee’s current accrued and used leave amounts. An employer had to provide this information in writing or electronically. The ordinance laid out options, including listing the information on paystubs or having the information accessible to employees online. As amended, the ordinance removes the “upon request” language and replaces it with a mandate that accrued and used leave amounts appear on employees’ paystubs.

Penalties & Damages

When first enacted, the ordinance included fines of “up to” $1,000 if employers committed a second or third violation against the same employee. The amendments now include a fine schedule detailing the fine for specific violations, along with fines for first-time violations of the anti-interference, -discrimination, and -retaliation provisions.   

For more information, please see the links below:

Ordinance NO. 2023-1

Earned Sick and Safe Leave (ESSL)

Previous Vensure Communication (July 21, 2022)

Article

What do employers need to do?
Employers should review the links provided above and their paid time off or sick time policies to ensure they comply with the law.

This communication is intended solely for the purpose of conveying information. The present post might incorporate hyperlinks directing readers to websites managed by third-party entities. The inclusion of any links within this communication is meant to serve as points of reference and could encompass opinion articles from various law firms, articles from HR associations, official websites, news releases, and documents of government agencies, and other relevant third-party sources. Vensure has no authority over these external websites and bears no responsibility for their content. Furthermore, Vensure does not endorse the materials present on these websites. The contents of this communication should not be interpreted as legal advice or as a legal standpoint concerning specific facts or scenarios. Nor should it be deemed an exhaustive compilation of facts potentially pertinent to federal, state, or local laws. It is strongly advised that employers solicit legal guidance from an employment attorney when undertaking actions in response to any legal updates provided. This is due to the possibility of future alterations occurring in federal, state, and local laws, regulations, as well as the directives and guidelines issued by governing agencies. These changes may transpire at any given time, potentially rendering certain portions of the content within this update void or inaccurate.