This section defines key terms used in the Nebraska Healthy Families and Workplaces Act, including employer, employee, paid sick time, public health emergency, retaliatory personnel action, small business, and year.
For purposes of the Nebraska Healthy Families and Workplaces Act: (1) Department means the Department of Labor; (2) Employ means to permit to work by an employer pursuant to an employment relationship; (3) Employee means any individual employed by an employer, but does not include: (a) An individual owner-operator; (b) An independent contractor; (c) An individual who works in Nebraska for fewer than eighty hours in a calendar year; (d) An individual who is employed in agricultural employment of a seasonal or other temporary nature; (e) An "employee" as defined by 45 U.S.C. 351(d) who is subject to the federal Railroad Unemployment Insurance Act, 45 U.S.C. 351 et seq.; or (f) An individual under sixteen years of age; (4)(a) Employer means any individual, partnership, limited liability company, association, corporation, business trust, legal representative, or organized group of persons who employs eleven or more employees. (b) Employer does not include the United States or the State of Nebraska or its agencies, departments, or political subdivisions; (5) Family member means: (a) Any of the following, regardless of age: A biological, adopted, or foster child, a stepchild, a legal ward, or a child to whom the employee stands in loco parentis; (b) A biological, foster, step, or adoptive parent or a legal guardian of an employee or an employee's spouse; (c) A person who stood in loco parentis to the employee or the employee's spouse when the employee or employee's spouse was a minor child; (d) A person to whom the employee is legally married under the laws of any state; (e) A grandparent, grandchild, or sibling, whether of a biological, foster, adoptive, or step relationship, of the employee or the employee's spouse; or (f) Any other individual related by blood to the employee or whose close association with the employee is the equivalent of a family relationship; (6) Health care professional means any person licensed under any federal or state law to provide medical or emergency services; (7) Paid sick time means time that is compensated at the same hourly rate and with the same benefits, including health care benefits, as the employee typically earns during hours worked and that is provided by an employer to an employee for the purposes described in section 48-3804, and in no case shall the amount of this hourly rate be less than that provided under section 48-1203. Notwithstanding the foregoing, for employees paid on a commission, piece-rate, mileage, or fee-for-service basis, paid sick time means time that is compensated at an hourly rate determined by the employer using the average weekly rate calculation under section 48-126, which shall then be reduced to an hourly rate based on a forty-hour workweek, and that is provided by an employer to an employee for the purposes described in section 48-3804. Paid sick time includes time made available to employees for purposes including, but not limited to, the purposes described in section 48-3804 under a paid leave policy described in subsection (7) of section 48-3803; (8) Public health emergency means a declaration or proclamation related to a public health threat, risk, disaster, or emergency that is made or issued by a federal, state, or local official with the authority to make or issue such a declaration or proclamation; (9) Retaliatory personnel action means a denial of any right guaranteed under the Nebraska Healthy Families and Workplaces Act and any threat, discharge, suspension, demotion, reduction of hours or pay, or other adverse action against an employee for exercising or attempting to exercise any right guaranteed in the Nebraska Healthy Families and Workplaces Act; (10)(a) Small business means an employer with at least eleven but fewer than twenty employees during a given week, including full-time, part-time, or temporary employees. (b) Small business does not include an employer that maintained twenty or more employees on its payroll in each of twenty or more calendar weeks in the current or preceding calendar year; and (11) Year means a regular and consecutive twelve-month period as determined by the employer. History: Initiative Law 2024, No. 436, § 2; Laws 2025, LB415, § 1.