On October 1, 2025, Nebraska workers began accruing paid sick leave through the Nebraska Healthy Families & Workplaces Act (Initiative 436), which was approved by nearly 75% of voters in 2024.
This new law gives over 100,000 Nebraskans the right to earn paid sick leave after 80 hours of consecutive employment, at which point workers will begin to accrue a minimum of one hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours worked:
- Workers ages 16 and up whose employers have 11-19 employees earn 40 hours of paid sick time in a year.
- Workers ages 16 and up whose employers have 20 or more employees earn 56 hours of paid sick time in a year.
We have been hearing stories from community members about their employers choosing to convert a portion of their employees’ vacation or PTO time into time that can only be used for sick leave. As a result, many workers are feeling like they now have less flexibility in how they can use their time off. Because of this, I want to provide some clarification on the intent of the initiative, and what employers are – and are not – required to do:
The primary purpose of the paid sick leave initiative was to provide paid sick leave for Nebraska workers who did not previously have access to it.
The initiative also purposefully left undisturbed any general paid time off (PTO) policies that allow workers to care for their health or the health of a loved one, as long as such policies meet or exceed the law’s minimum requirements.
Nothing in the new paid sick leave law requires employers who have general PTO policies that meet the law’s minimum requirements to reduce the amount of paid time off available to workers, or convert existing paid time off into time that can only be used for sick leave.
In fact, these changes ignore the clear intent and plain language of the new law. If employers are making these changes, they are doing so voluntarily.
If you have additional questions, please email info@paidsickleavefornebraskans.org.