California Pregnancy Disability Leave May Be Changing

With the whole alphabet soup of employee leaves available today, it gets more and more difficult to sort everything out.

Pregnancy Disability Leave, known commonly as PDL, can be one of the trickiest to administer.

Here are a few key points to remember:

• Employers with 5 or more employees are required by California law to provide PDL.

• Employees have no waiting period; they are eligible for PDL from their first day of employment.

• PDL provides up to 88 work days of leave, which is essentially 4 months.

• The leave can be taken intermittently.

• PDL can run concurrently with the federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), but not with the California Family Rights Act (CFRA).

One of the most common misconceptions with PDL is that becoming pregnant automatically qualifies an employee for PDL. This is not true; an employee is considered eligible for PDL only if she is actually disabled, based upon the opinion of her health care provider.

If the health care provider states the employee is:

• Unable to work, or

• Unable to perform any one of her essential duties, or

• Unable to perform essential functions without risking her health, or

• Suffering from extreme morning sickness, or

• In need of prenatal care

then she is eligible for PDL.

Those are the PDL basics, but they may change. California PDL is covered under Gov. Codes 12940-12951, and falls under the Fair Employment and Housing Commission (FEHC). Just last month, however, the FEHC held public hearings over proposed changes to the pregnancy leave regulations.

The pregnancy disability leave, already a bit tricky to administer properly, may become trickier yet. If you are currently administering pregnancy disability leaves, I strongly recommend contacting FEHC directly and getting the very latest in regulations.

FEHC Website: http://www.fehc.ca.gov/

FEHC explanation of proposed PDL changes: http://www.fehc.ca.gov/act/pdf/pregnancyregulations/Initial_Statement_of_Reasons.pdf

The preceding information pertains to California only, and is for general informational purposes only. It is not legal advice and is not intended as such. Human Resource professionals are strongly encouraged to check the laws and regulations of their home state and local cities.

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