Get Started: Chicago is latest city with paid sick leave law

PAID SICK LEAVE GAINS

Chicago has joined the list of cities requiring employers to give their staffers paid sick time. The City Council last week approved the new law, which requires employees to be given one hour of sick time for every 40 hours they work, up to a maximum of five paid sick days in one year. Workers can roll over up to 2.5 unused sick days into the following year. The law takes effect in July 2017.

A growing number of states and cities have implemented paid sick leave laws in recent years. The states include California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Oregon and Vermont. The more than two dozen cities with these laws include Los Angeles and Minneapolis, which approved legislation this year, and San Francisco, Seattle, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C.

Montgomery County, Maryland, a suburb of Washington. D.C., also requires paid sick time. Some of the laws have exemptions for small businesses.

Companies that have contracts with the federal government are also required to give workers paid sick leave under an executive order from President Barack Obama.

SUMMER SEMINARS

Small business owners can learn more about online review sites, and how they can use the sites to promote themselves and limit any damage from customers' negative reviews, at an online seminar sponsored by SCORE, the organization that gives free counseling to small businesses. The seminar will be held Thursday, June 29, at 2 p.m. Eastern time. Learn more and register at http://tinyurl.com/jv4ncbf

SCORE will also sponsor a seminar on social media marketing to be held Thursday, July 7, at 2 p.m. Eastern time. Learn more and register at http://tinyurl.com/zmq657v

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Follow Joyce Rosenberg at www.twitter.com/JoyceMRosenberg . Her work can be found here: http://bigstory.ap.org/content/joyce-m-rosenberg