36 | 2023 Cal-Peculiarities ©2023 Seyfarth Shaw LLP www.seyfarth.com include such “safety measures” as a transfer, modified schedules, changed telephone numbers, and installation of locks. The employer, in considering a reasonable accommodation, may require certification of the employee’s continued victim status.72 2.7.2 Medical leaves California employers with 25 or more employees must permit employees who are victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking to take time off work to obtain victim-related services, such as medical attention, psychological counseling, or help in safety planning.73 2.8 Time Off for Good Deeds and Training for Same California employers must allow employees to take leaves of absence to serve as volunteer firefighters, peace officers, and emergency rescue personnel.74 Also qualifying for leave status is volunteer service with the Civil Air Patrol.75 California law also requires employers with 50 or more employees to provide up to 14 days of temporary leave to allow employees to engage in fire, law enforcement, and emergency rescue training activities.76 Employees subjected to an adverse employment action for taking time off for these reasons can seek reinstatement and recovery of lost wages and work benefits. A willful violation of this law may constitute a misdemeanor.77 2.9 Voting Leave California employers must post, at least ten days before each statewide election, a notice that employees who lack time to vote during nonworking hours may take paid leave of up to two hours to vote.78 This time off to vote should be at the start or end of the regular work shift, whichever allows the most time for voting.79 2.10 School Parent Leave Employers with 25 or more employees at the same location must grant unpaid leave of up to 40 hours each year to an employee who is a parent to participate in various activities of the parent’s child in grades kindergarten through 12, or at a licensed child care provider.80 Among the activities covered are finding and enrolling in school or licensed child care, participating in school-related activities and events, and addressing a school or child-careprovider emergency.81 “Child care provider or school emergency” includes a request that the child be picked up from school or child care, an attendance policy that prohibits the child from attending the school or licensed child care provider, behavioral or discipline problems, closure or unexpected unavailability of the school or child care provider (excluding planned holidays), and a natural disaster.82 An eight-hour-per-month limit applies to leave for non-emergency activities.83 Employers must not discriminate against an employee for taking time off for these activities.84 Employers also must not discriminate against an employee who, at a teacher’s request, appears in school as the parent or guardian of a suspended pupil.85 The law defines “parent” expansively to include a parent, guardian, stepparent, foster parent, or grandparent of—or a person who stands in loco parentis to—a child.86 2.11 Kin Care Leave Under the Healthy Workplaces, Healthy Families Act, all California employers must provide paid sick leave to all employees for their own or a family member’s illness or injury and other specified reasons.87 (See § 2.14.) Meanwhile, under the “kin care” statute,88 employers also must permit employees to use in a calendar year the amount of sick leave that accrues during six months for certain purposes, including the diagnosis, care, medical treatment, or preventive care of any “family member”—a spouse, registered domestic partner, grandparent, grandchild, sibling, parent, or child. Both “parent” and “child” are defined very broadly to cover all varieties—
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