The San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors unanimously passed a legislation set to provide paid sick leave to domestic workers; the first of its kind in the United States. The “Domestic Workers’ Equal Access to Paid Sick Leave” seeks to establish a “consolidate benefits system” that will allow people who work for multiple households or clients to earn cumulative benefits as they move between jobs.
Under this legislation, a “domestic worker” would be defined as an individual who is employed (either under contract or not) by a hiring entity to provide in-home personal or domestic services such as:
- Childcare
- Providing companionship and other non-medical care or services for a sick, convalescing, disabled, or senior person
- Housekeeping (including cleaning, cooking, and providing food)
- Gardening
Going by the Board of Supervisors’ statement, this ordinance will make it so domestic workers have the right to paid sick leave, equal to not less than one hour of net pay, at their regular rate of pay, for every 30 hours of work. In order to monitor this, a system of shared responsibility will be implemented, in which both the hiring entity and the domestic worker will have to report the number of work hours and net pay rate to a “paid sick leave system.” Additionally, if the ordinance gets approved, the hiring entity will be responsible for any and all tax withholding or tax reporting obligations for the contribution at the time the paid sick leave is processed.
If the additional approval steps are taken, the ordinance is expected to take effect at some point in 2022. According to the San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors, it is expected to affect approximately 10,000 domestic workers in private homes. If the legislation comes to take effect, the program will be administered by the San Francisco Office of Economic and Workforce Development, the same organization that has been tasked with overseeing the development of an app system for this program. The app will allow tracking of the cumulative benefits and transferring funds from a hiring entity to a domestic worker.