The New Parent Leave Act (NPLA), went into effect on January 1, 2018. The NPLA is only available to employees who are not subject to both the federal FMLA and the state CFRA. The NPLA applies to employers with 20 or more employees and requires them to provide eligible employees with up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to bond with a newborn child or a child placed with the employee through adoption or foster care.

An eligible employee must meet the following requirements in order to receive NPLA leave:

Have provided 12 months of service with the employer;
Have provided 1,250 hours of service to the employer during the previous 12-month period; and
Work at a worksite where the employer employs at least 20 employees within a 75-mile radius.

NPLA leave does not run during the same time as Pregnancy Disability Leave (PDL), and the time taken for these two types of leave should be tracked separately. Employees are still able to receive 4 months of PDL. Therefore, if an employee uses their PDL and then requests to use the full 12-weeks provided through the NPLA, a California employee could receive a total of 7 months of protected leave.

The employee’s job must remain protected during the duration of the leave. An employer must provide a guarantee to the employee that the same or a comparable position will still be available to the employee upon the termination of their leave. If this guarantee is not fulfilled, the employer will be considered to have refused to allow the leave.

Additionally, during the duration of the NPLA leave, the employer must maintain and pay for the coverage of the eligible employee, not to exceed 12 weeks over the course of a 12-month period. The employer must provide the same level of coverage and under the same conditions that they would have been provided if they had not taken the leave.

On January 1, 2020, a new version of the NPLA statute went into effect that eliminated an optional parental leave mediation pilot program that allowed employers and employees to mediate claims. The rest of the NPLA requirements, however, remain the same.

The attorneys at Palmer Kazanjian Wohl Hodson LLP are available to advise employers on how to properly comply with the NPLA and other leave laws.

Sources:

Cal. Gov. Code Section 12945.6
S.B. 63