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Use the leave interaction information and timeline below to help determine the relationships among the various state-mandated leaves of absence and benefits during time off. The types of leave and benefits include:
The California Rights Act (CFRA) covers employer with five or more employees and the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) covers employers with 50 or more employees. Eligible employees must meet all of the following:
This leave is:
Employers should note that CFRA provides broader coverage for leave to care for family members than the FMLA. In addition to children, parents, and spouses, CFRA allows employees to take up to 12 weeks of leave to care for registered domestic partners, siblings, parents-in-law, grandparents, grandchildren, or someone else with a blood or family-like relationship with the employee ("designated person") with serious health conditions. If the employee is taking leave to care for any of these family members, the leave will be CFRA only and will not run concurrently with FMLA. Leave taken as CFRA-only does not affect the employee’s time available under the FMLA.
The CFRA and FMLA are unpaid; however, employees must be allowed to use accrued vacation pay, paid sick time, other accrued paid time off, or other paid or unpaid time off negotiated with the employer. If the leave is to take care of a family member or to bond with a child, an employee may be eligible for Paid Family Leave (PFL) benefits for a maximum of eight weeks while on CFRA leave. PFL is only a wage replacement benefit; it is not a protected leave of absence.
An employee may also be eligible for up to 52 weeks of State Disability Insurance (SDI) if the absence is for the employee's own non-work-related serious health condition, even though the amount of time they are off from work/on leave with job protection is normally limited to the 12 weeks of CFRA.
If the employee’s serious health condition is work related, then the employee may apply for workers’ compensation benefits through your workers’ compensation insurance carrier. As a reminder, workers’ compensation does not provide for a job-protected leave of absence. You will place an employee on CFRA leave, if eligible, and if not, you will explore whether leave is a reasonable accommodation under the circumstances.
Keep in mind that employees cannot receive multiple wage replacement benefits at the same time and that there is typically a 7-day waiting period for SDI benefits. However, there is no waiting period for PFL or workers’ compensation benefits.