Coronavirus and the Workplace: What if the Boss Says Stay Home?

Sixty-eight percent of the employers surveyed said they would pay employees as long as a quarantine lasted, even if they showed no symptoms and couldn’t work from home because of the nature of their job. Twelve percent said they would pay for a fixed amount of time, such as two weeks. Twenty percent of the companies, which were surveyed from Feb. 13 to Feb. 20, said they didn’t know or hadn’t made a decision yet on what they would do.

Paying workers in these situations “will serve to incentivize employees to self-identify and self-quarantine,” said Susan Gross Sholinsky, a lawyer with Epstein Becker Green in New York.

But American employers aren’t obligated to pay most workers, which may affect the response of businesses — particularly smaller employers.

Federal law requires that hourly workers be paid only for the time they work. Salaried workers, managers and executives will usually, but not always, be paid during a business disruption, Mr. Deng said. Employers who are not paying for quarantine periods often let workers use vacation, sick time, personal days and other available paid time off — if workers have it.

Union workers should review their collective bargaining agreements because they may have provisions that provide paid time off in an emergency, according to the Society for Human Resource Management.

What happens if I or a family member get sick?

This also often depends on the generosity of your employer, labor experts said, because there are no federal requirement for employers to provide paid sick leave, even in the event of a natural disaster.

Roughly a dozen states and several cities — including California, Michigan, New Jersey, Washington, San Francisco and New York City — provide paid sick leave to many workers, often including those working part-time.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/article/coronavirus-work-job.html