California will stop making companies pay employees who are unable to work after getting infected with COVID-19 while working.
The state’s Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board voted on Thursday to end that requirement in 2023, adopting the COVID-19 Prevention Non-Emergency Regulations, citing new pandemic challenges making the rule harder to enforce.
The coronavirus is so widespread that it is harder to tell where someone got sick and changes in quarantine regulations mean that most workers are not required to stay home once they’ve been exposed to the virus as long as they don’t have symptoms and don’t test positive for the virus.
The seven-member body approved the new rule by a 6-1 vote.
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If approved by the Office of Administrative Law, the new rules will last for two years because they are temporary regulations put in place in response to the pandemic.
Regulators will soon begin working on permanent rules, and several board members promised to make sure the permanent rules include a requirement for sick workers to keep getting paid.
Employees who miss work due to COVID-19 can use sick leave, although not everyone has it.
Low-wage workers can file for workers’ compensation benefits if they have to miss time because they have the coronavirus, but approval is not guaranteed.
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A state law that was passed earlier in the year requires companies to give workers up to two weeks of paid time off if they get sick from the coronavirus, but that law expires this month.
However, companies are still required to notify employees if they have been exposed to the virus while at work, as well as to make free COVID-19 tests available to workers who have come in close contact with someone else on the job who has been infected.
Business groups argued Thursday that there don’t need to be any coronavirus standards at all as the government warns about a spike in infections and resumed the program sending free COVID-19 tests to U.S. households.
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California Gov. Gavin Newsom will end the state’s coronavirus emergency declaration in February.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.