The Ohio employment law guide

Employers do not have to provide paid or unpaid sick leave, but if an employer chooses to include a sick leave policy in the employee handbook, it must comply with the terms.

An employer may be required to provide unpaid leave in accordance with the federal laws in the Family and Medical Leave Act.

State laws do not require bereavement leave to be provided by employers.

Ohio law does not require employers to provide paid or unpaid vacation time, but if they choose to do so, they must comply with the established policy.

Employers may deny employees payment for unused accrued vacation time upon separation from employment, as long as the policy is clear and established.

Employers can also disqualify an employee from payment of accrued vacation when they are separated from employment if they do not comply with certain requirements, such as not giving a two-week notice.

Employers can implement a “use-it-or-lose-it” vacation policy that requires employees to use their vacation time by a certain date.

Private employers are not required to provide paid time off or unpaid leave for holidays, but must comply with any policy they have established.

Employers are not required to pay an employee for time spent responding to a jury summons, but employees cannot be terminated or penalized for doing so.

Employers may not request that an employee use any available vacation or sick leave to respond to a jury summons.

Employees who take a reasonable amount of time off to vote cannot be penalized or terminated.

Employers are only required to pay salaried employees for time taken off to vote.

Employers are prohibited from discharging or discriminating against employees who are volunteer firefighters or members of volunteer medical response companies because they are late for work or miss a shift as a result of responding to an emergency call received prior to the start of work.

Employers may require a written statement signed by the head of the fire department or medical organization, as applicable, informing the employer of the employee’s volunteer or first responder status.

Employers may also require affected employees to do the following: Make every effort to inform their employer when they may be late or absent in order to respond to an emergency; If unable to provide such notice, give the employer a written statement signed by the fire chief, medical director, or chief administrator explaining why they could not do so; At the employer’s request, submit a written statement from the fire chief, medical director, or chief administrator verifying that they responded to a call and specifying the response date, time, and duration; Promptly notify the employer of any change to their volunteer status.

Employers are required to provide unpaid leave for an employee to appear as a witness in a criminal, delinquency, or grand jury proceeding or to assist a prosecutor in preparing a criminal case. Employers cannot take any adverse action because an employee takes such leave.

Employers cannot take any adverse action against an employee who is the victim of a crime (or their family member or representative) for preparing for a criminal or delinquency proceeding at the prosecutor’s request. Employers cannot take any adverse action against such employee for attending a criminal or delinquency proceeding pursuant to a subpoena if their attendance is reasonably necessary to protect the interests of the victim.

The federal Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA) is applicable to all employers in the United States.

Employers with 50 or more employees must provide eligible employees with family military leave of up to 10 days or 80 hours (whichever is less) once a calendar year  The employer may choose whether the leave is paid or unpaid.

To be eligible, the employee must work for the employer for at least 12 consecutive months and for at least 1,250 hours in the 12 months immediately preceding commencement of the leave.

In addition, the employee must be the parent, spouse, or a person who has or had legal custody of a person who is a member of the uniformed services when that member is called for active duty longer than 30 days or is injured while serving on active duty.

Employers may require that the employee provide 14 days’ notice of intended leave for active duty deployment or two days’ notice of intended leave for injuries. Notice may not be required for leave taken because of critical or life-threatening injuries.

Employees are entitled to take the leave no more than two weeks prior to or one week after the date of deployment.

The employer may require that the employee exhaust all available forms of leave, except sick leave or disability leave.