Amidst a swirl of activity around the Paid Sick Time requirements in Missouri Prop A, there are important deadlines looming for Missouri employers. Unless the Missouri Legislature or the Missouri Supreme Court intervenes, private employers with employees in Missouri will be required to display a poster regarding this Paid Sick Time (PST) benefit, and distribute information about it to each Missouri employee, by April 15, 2025. Employees would begin to accrue PST starting May 1, 2025.[1]
Despite what you may have heard or read, the PST provisions of Prop A have not (yet) been repealed. Although HB 567 would completely repeal the Paid Sick Time section of Prop A, it is not law yet. The portion repealing the PST provision passed the House on March 13; unfortunately, the separate portion that would make that law effective immediately (the Emergency Clause) did not pass the House[2].
Moreover, HB 567 must still pass the Senate. The bill is scheduled for hearing before the Senate Fiscal Oversight Committee on April 7, 2025. If it passes out of that committee, it will be placed at the bottom of the formal Senate calendar for a vote by the full Senate. And even if the repeal passes the full Senate, the Emergency Clause would require a separate vote in the Senate. If the Emergency Clause passed the Senate, it would have to be voted on again by the House (where it failed by a large margin before). In both bodies, the Emergency Clause must garner a 2/3 majority to pass. Without passage of the Emergency Clause, barring some court intervention, any repeal passed would not be effective until August 28, 2025.
On the judicial front, on March 12, 2025 the Missouri Supreme Court heard oral arguments challenging the constitutionality of Proposition A. The Court has not yet rendered a decision. Based on the oral arguments we heard, we believe relief for employers is more likely to come, if at all, from the Legislature than from the Court.
The Missouri Department of Labor & Industrial Relations (“Department”) has published an approved poster and a model notice. (For the poster, the Department website includes this advisory: Be advised, the information provided may be subject to change due to pending litigation. FineLine notes that legislative action may also affect the Department’s approved poster and notice).
Unless the law is repealed or struck down with immediate effect, employers should be prepared to display the poster “in a conspicuous and accessible” place, and to distribute the notice “on a single piece of 8.5 x 11 paper in no less than 14-point font” to all employees subject to the law on April 15. (There is no apparent approval for digital posters or notices.) Starting May 1, 2025, Paid Sick Time would begin to accrue at the rate of 1 hour of PST for every 30 hours worked, up to a maximum of 40 hrs./yr. for employers with fewer than 15 employees; and up to a maximum of 56 hrs./yr. for employers with 15 or more employees.
Prop A authorizes the Department to impose fines for willful violations of up to $500 per day of each day of a continuing violation. It further allows individual employees, “aggrieved by a failure of an employer to comply with any portion” of Prop A to bring a civil lawsuit against the employer. The Court may grant “appropriate” relief – including injunctive relief; the full amount of any unpaid earned sick time; liquidated damages in the same amount as the unpaid, earned sick time; reasonable attorney’s fees; reinstatement and backpay. Prop A further provides that an employer who willfully violates or fails to comply with any of the provisions and requirements of Prop A shall be guilty of a class C misdemeanor – “provided, however, that an employer who willfully violates the notice and posting requirements … shall be guilty of an infraction.”
If the law goes into effect, employers should be ready to work with counsel (if they have not already) to quickly decide how to coordinate existing PTO policies with these Prop A requirements. Employers may be misled by Prop A’s section expressly stating that employers are not required to provide additional paid sick time if their existing policies provide at least an equal amount of paid time off as that provided under Prop A. Often overlooked, however, is the law’s further mandate that the employer’s existing policy must allow the time to be used “for the same purposes and under the same conditions as earned paid sick time under [the Paid Sick Time provisions of Prop A].” Given the expansive reach of Prop A, the prohibition against waiting periods before using accruals, and the limited ability to require the employee to give advance notice before using PST, it is unlikely that most existing polices meet the latter requirements, and policy revisions almost certainly will be required.
We will continue to monitor these rapidly changing developments and will update you accordingly. In the meantime, stay tuned and stay nimble!
© 2025 FineLine HR Consulting, LLC
[1] Prop A also included a separate provision increasing the State minimum wage to $13.75, effective January 1, 2025, and modifying it yearly thereafter. The minimum wage component of Prop A is not further discussed in this Alert.
[2] There are other proposed bills creating exemptions from the PST law, which likewise are not discussed in this Alert.
