New Jersey Updates Family Leave Notices

We’ve been anxiously awaiting updates to New Jersey’s Family Leave Act and Family Leave Insurance notices, and we are pleased to report that they are now available. Both notices have April 2019 revision dates.

Keep reading to get all the scoop on employer responsibilities and new benefits for employees.

New Provisions of the Family Leave Act

Beginning June 30, 2019, employers who have at least 30 employees must provide family leave. Prior to June 30, the law applies to employers with at least 50 employees.

The Family Leave Act notice now states that leave may be taken:

• To care for or bond with a child within 1 year of the child’s birth or placement for adoption or foster care
• To care for someone with a serious health condition who is the “equivalent” of a family member

Before taking leave, employees are now required to give their employer certain advance notice, as outlined below:

• At least 15 days’ notice must be given for intermittent leave.
• At least 30 days’ notice must be given for consecutive leave to care for a newborn or an adopted or foster child.
• The notice must be given “in a reasonable and practicable manner” for consecutive leave to care for a seriously ill family member.
• When emergent circumstances require shorter notice, the employee is expected to give as much notice as possible.

New Requirements for Family Leave Insurance

Starting July 1, 2020, the law allows applicants to apply for and take up to 12 weeks of continuous family leave or 56 days of intermittent leave.

In addition to taking leave to bond with a child during the first 12 months after the child’s birth or adoption, or to care for a family member with a serious health condition, applicants may also take leave to:

• Bond with a foster child within 12 months of the child’s placement (providing the applicant or applicant’s spouse/domestic or civil union partner is the child’s biological, adoptive, or foster parent—unless a surrogate carried the child)
• Care for a victim of domestic violence or a sexually violent offense, or a victim’s family member

Among the revisions to the Family Leave Insurance, notice is expanded definitions of “family member” and “child.”

“Family member” is now defined as a child, parent, parent-in-law, sibling, grandparent, grandchild, spouse, domestic partner, civil union partner, and any other person related by blood to the employee or with whom the employee has a close association that is the equivalent of a family relationship.

In addition to a biological, adopted, or foster child, and a stepchild or legal ward of a parent, the definition of “child” now includes a child gained by way of a valid written contract between the parent and a surrogate (gestational carrier).

Here is one last update to the notice: New mothers who get temporary disability benefits through the state plan for their pregnancy will receive instructions on filing for family leave benefits after their child is born.

Compliance Made Easy!

Heads-up to our customers in New Jersey: The state’s minimum wage is going up as of July 1, 2019, which means you’ll have to order another new poster before you know it!

For this reason, we encourage you to order our 1-Year Compliance Plan so that you will automatically receive the updated New Jersey poster as soon as it is available. And because our plan provides free poster updates for mandatory changes, no matter how many occur during the plan year, you can always count on Poster Compliance Center to keep your business in compliance!