Michigan minimum wage increase and new paid sick leave requirements go into effect

These should help improve working conditions for Direct Support Professionals who work with people with disabilities, but they don’t go nearly far enough to stabilize the workforce. For people making more than minimum wage, the increase theoretically puts upward pressure on all low wage jobs.

The Michigan minimum wage has increased from $9.25/hour to $9.45/hour. An article form the Detroit Free Press, “Michigan paid sick leave changes: What to know about new law” by Micah Walker, 3/29/19, explains the new sick leave law.

These policies would have been more generous had the voters been allowed to vote on a proposed minimum wage increase and if a paid sick leave policy that was approved by voters had not been not been almost gutted during the lame duck legislature in December 2018.

“The paid sick leave law comes after activists gathered enough signatures to get the issue on the Nov. 6 ballot. However, instead of allowing it to go on the ballot, Republicans in the Legislature adopted the proposals in September and two days after the November election introduced bills to gut the laws they had passed just a few months earlier. If the proposals had gone to the ballot and passed by voters, it would have taken a three-fourths majority to amend the laws.”

The sick-leave law applies to workplaces with 50 or more employees, which includes full-time and some part-time employees with a lot of exemptions allowed.

Employees can take paid leave for:

• A physical or mental illness, injury, or health condition affecting themselves or a family member.
• Medical diagnosis, care, or treatment of themselves or a family member
• Preventive care for themselves or a family member
• If the employee or a family member is the victim of sexual assault or domestic violence
• For the closure of the employee's place of business by order of a public official
• To care for a child whose school or daycare has closed by a public official
• The employee's or a family member's exposure to a contagious disease
• To relocate
• To obtain legal services

The Act requires an employer to pay employees at a rate equal to or greater than the normal hourly wage, base wage, or minimum wage. The employer does not have to include overtime, vacation, bonuses, commissions, supplemental pay, price-rate pay or gratuities when calculating the pay rate. 

Read the article for more details.