This past February, the Michigan legislature wrote a bi-partisan compromise in the eleventh hour to limit the state’s wage increases as well as change paid sick leave requirements.
Hours before the deadline, Speaker Matt Hall said both parties were aiming to reach this compromise.
“We're going to try very hard to get it done before midnight,” Hall said. “And I don't think we want an extension. I think we're better off putting the pressure on, and then hoping that the LEO Director, Corbyn, is reasonable in how it's enforced after midnight.”
The Earned Sick Time Act went into effect at 12:02 am on Feb. 21 because of a clause within the bill that granted it immediate effect at that time. The minimum wage laws, however, went into effect hours after the midnight deadline, when Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed the bill into law.
Sean Egan, the Deputy Director of the Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity, said that a small group of workers might have seen a gap in pay between midnight on Feb. 21 and the exact time the bill went into effect.
“Theoretically, there is a period between midnight and roughly 1:30 in the afternoon on Friday before the governor signed the bills,” Egan told Stateside. “We don't anticipate and have not seen any complaints or questions or anything about that. Certainly it would be a very small group of workers that would be exposed to that particular gap, but theoretically there is a little bit of gap in time on the minimum wage side that occurs.”
Egan encouraged workers with any complaints about the gap to file a complaint with the LEO office.
The amendment does not change the full minimum wage, which is still $12.48 and will increase to $14.97 by 2028. Under the amendment, however, the wage for tipped workers is 38% of the minimum wage now, whereas it would’ve been 48 % prior to the amendment. It will remain at 38% until 2025 when the percentage will slowly increase to 50% by 2031.
Most of the questions LEO has received are on the earned sick time act. Previously, workers for businesses with 10 or more workers could earn 72 hours of paid sick leave, depending on sick time accrued at a rate of one hour for every 30 hours worked.
Employees of businesses with less than 10 workers could earn up to 40 hours of paid sick leave and another 32 hours of unpaid leave. This would also depend on the rate in which hours are accrued. Small businesses have until October 2025 to comply.
The only exemptions are for the U.S. government and railway workers and employers based on the federal Railway Unemployment Insurance Act.
Businesses must also provide employees with written notice of their sick time policy within 30 days of the law taking effect or at the time of hiring. This includes the amount of sick time an employee is provided, the terms in which this time is used as well as the employer's choice of how to calculate a year
“That really answered some of the employer questions, dealt with some of the coverage issues, and overall probably strengthened the bill to some degree to make some of these issues much more clear,” Egan said.
Egan said the compromise places Michigan among 19 states with similar laws.
“All workers will have access to paid leave benefits. It seemed clear that the legislature struck a compromise that really considered both the impact to how we operate.”
