Employers must provide notice of Missouri's new earned paid sick time (PST) requirements no later than April 15, 2025—ahead of the May 1, 2025, effective date of the state's new PST law, or Proposition A, passed by voters in November 2024—but much uncertainty surrounds the PST provisions due to a pending legal challenge in the Supreme Court of Missouri and multiple bills in the Missouri General Assembly.
Quick Hits
- Proposition A requires Missouri employers to provide notice by April 15, 2025, summarizing employees' entitlement to earned paid sick time, starting May 1, 2025.
- The Supreme Court of Missouri is reviewing a legal challenge to Proposition A that seeks to invalidate the law because it allegedly violates the Missouri Constitution.
- The Missouri General Assembly—Missouri's state legislature—is considering multiple bills that would affect the paid sick time benefits provided under Proposition A, including a bill that would fully repeal the earned paid sick time part of the statute.
Proposition A, which Missouri voters passed via a ballot measure on November 5, 2024, includes a provision that raises the state's minimum wage as of January 1, 2025, and requires employers to begin providing earned paid sick time (PST) on May 1, 2025. Proposition A also requires employers to provide notice and display a poster summarizing the PST law by April 15, 2025.
On March 12, 2025, the Supreme Court of Missouri heard oral arguments on the legal challenge, which could invalidate all or part of Proposition A. Additionally, the Missouri General Assembly is considering multiple bills that could change how employers provide PST to their employees, including House Bill (HB) No. 567, which would fully repeal the PST part of the statute.
The Missouri Paid Sick Time Law
Proposition A is a voter initiative that increased the state's minimum wage on January 1, 2025, and requires most employers to provide earned paid sick time to employees beginning May 1, 2025. The law exempts employers that are federal, state, or local governments or political subdivisions of the state. The statute also excludes some categories of workers such as volunteers, camp counselors, babysitters, golf caddies, some rail carrier employees, and retail employees of businesses with annual gross volume sales of less than $500,000. The law does not apply to employees covered by a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) that was in effect on November 5, 2024, until the CBA is amended, extended, or renewed.
Eligible employees earn paid sick time at a rate of one hour for every thirty hours worked and can use up to fifty-six hours of PST in a year (employees who work for an employer with fewer than fifteen employees can use forty hours each year). Employers must allow carryover of up to eighty hours of unused PST at year-end. Employees can use PST in increments of one hour for reasons covered by the statute, which include an employee's own illness or medical reasons, illness/medical reasons of an immediate family member, closure of the employer's business or the employee's child's school, and absences due to sexual assault or domestic violence. Employers can enforce a written policy that requires advance notice for PST use when PST use is foreseeable, but employees need only provide notice as soon as practicable when PST use is unforeseeable. Employers cannot require employees to provide documentation to substantiate PST use unless an employee uses PST for three or more consecutive days.
The law also has an anti-retaliation provision that prohibits employers from disciplining employees for PST use, which includes penalizing employees with attendance points for absences associated with the use of PST that conforms to the terms and conditions for use set out in the statute. If an employer has an existing paid time off (PTO) policy that provides PTO that meets the minimum accrual rate in the statute and allows employees to use PTO for the same reasons and under the same terms and conditions, then the employer need not provide additional PST under a separate policy. Employers must retain records related to PST for three years. The law includes criminal and civil penalties for violations and allows employees to bring a private right of action to cover actual damages and liquidated damages resulting from their employer's noncompliance with the PST mandates.
Employers must provide written notice to employees by April 15, 2025, that includes the accrual rate, start date, the anti-retaliation provision, an employee's right to bring a civil action, and the contact information for the Missouri Department of Labor and Industrial Relations (DOLIR). The notice must be on a "single piece of paper that is at least 8.5" x 11" with 14-point font."
While the DOLIR has not yet offered specific guidance on this issue, the law's use of the term "single piece of paper" suggests employers should provide a physical copy of the notice (as opposed to providing in electronic format).
The Legal Challenge Before the Supreme Court of Missouri
In December 2024, a group of citizens and business organizations challenged the constitutionality of Proposition A. In sum, the challenge alleges that Proposition A violates the Missouri Constitution because the initiative included two separate subjects (minimum wage and PST), and that the descriptions were not adequate to inform voters of the law's details and financial implications. The court set an expedited discovery and briefing schedule and heard oral arguments on March 12, 2025. The court has the case under advisement. The court's decision could affect whether employers are required to provide PST beginning on May 1, 2025. If the court finds Proposition A violated the state constitution, the court's order could invalidate the part of the law that requires that employers provide PST starting on May 1, 2025. If the court determines Proposition A did not violate the constitution, the proposition will remain in effect unless it is altered by the pending legislation.
Pending Missouri Legislative Actions
Multiple bills are pending in the Missouri House and Senate that could affect the PST part of Proposition A. HB 567 has made the most progress to date. Initially, HB 567 changed the date on which employers were required to provide PST from May 1, 2025, to January 1, 2026. Prior to passage in the House, the House amended the bill to provide for a full repeal of the PST part of Proposition A. The bill had an emergency clause that would have allowed it to take immediate effect if passed and enacted. An emergency clause requires approval by a two-thirds majority in each chamber of the legislature. The emergency clause did not receive the required two-thirds approval in the House. HB 567 was approved by the House on March 13, 2025, and sent to the Senate.
HB 567 is before the Senate for consideration. On April 7, 2025, the Senate Committee on Fiscal Oversight recommended passage of the bill, sending HB 567 to the full Senate for debate and a third read. HB 567 is not yet on the Senate calendar for the debate and third read. If the Senate passes HB 567, it will go to the governor for approval. If the governor signs the bill into law, the likely effective date of the repeal would be August 28, 2025.
Because the House did not approve the emergency clause, if HB 567 is enacted, it will not take effect until late August 2025 (ninety days after it is signed into law by the governor). Proposition A requires employers to begin providing earned paid sick time on May 1, 2025; thus, even if HB 567 repeals the PST law, there could be a period between May 1, 2025, and August 28, 2025, when employers must provide earned paid sick time as outlined in Proposition A.
Key Takeaways
Proposition A is presently in effect and requires employers to provide earned paid sick time beginning May 1, 2025. The law also requires employers to provide notice of the PST law by April 15, 2025. The Supreme Court of Missouri's decision on Proposition A could invalidate all or part of the law, which may affect an employer's obligation to provide PST starting May 1, 2025, but the court has not given any indication as to when it will render a decision. Even if the Missouri General Assembly passes HB 567, repealing the PST part of Proposition A, the repeal would not take effect until late August 2025, so employers would still need to address short-term compliance with Proposition A until the effective date of repeal.
With the various uncertainties surrounding the PST law, employers may want to plan how they will address compliance under the various scenarios. In the short term, employers must provide the required notice by the April 15, 2025, deadline.
Ogletree Deakins' Leaves of Absence/Reasonable Accommodation Practice Group, Kansas City office, and St. Louis office will continue to monitor developments and will provide updates on the Leaves of Absence and Missouri blogs as additional information becomes available.
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