Michigan Employee Handbook Requirements (2026)

On July 31, 2024, the Michigan Supreme Court dropped a 4-3 decision in Mothering Justice v. Attorney General that rewrote the paid sick leave landscape overnight. The court ruled that the legislature's 2018 "adopt-and-amend" maneuver violated the Michigan Constitution. The original voter-initiated Earned Sick Time Act (ESTA) was restored, replacing the watered-down Paid Medical Leave Act that employers had been following since 2019.

The differences between ESTA and the old PMLA are not minor adjustments. They are a complete overhaul:

• Coverage expanded dramatically. ESTA covers all employees: full-time, part-time, temporary, and seasonal. The PMLA exempted employers with fewer than 50 employees from providing any paid sick leave. Under ESTA, every employer must provide some level of paid time.
• Hours nearly doubled for large employers. Employers with 50 or more employees must now provide up to 72 hours of paid sick time per year, up from 40 hours under the PMLA. Smaller employers provide 40 hours paid and 32 hours unpaid.
• Accrual rate changed. Employees accrue 1 hour of sick time for every 30 hours worked (previously 1 per 35 under PMLA).
• Recordkeeping stakes went up. Employers must retain records for three years instead of one. If you fail to maintain records, the law presumes you violated ESTA. That presumption shifts the burden of proof to the employer in any enforcement action.
• Enforcement teeth are sharper. Employees now have a private right of action and a three-year statute of limitations, up from six months under the PMLA.

The effective date was February 21, 2025. Employers who were still operating under PMLA policies after that date are already in violation.

The fix: Audit your sick leave policy immediately. Update accrual rates, caps, and eligibility rules. Extend coverage to part-time and seasonal workers. Upgrade your recordkeeping to meet the three-year retention requirement. If you had no paid sick leave policy because you had fewer than 50 employees, you need one now.

Sources: Earned Sick Time Act (ESTA), Public Act 369 of 2018; Mothering Justice v. Attorney General, Michigan Supreme Court (July 31, 2024); Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity (LEO).

On February 13, 2024, Michigan became the first state in 58 years to repeal its right-to-work law. Governor Whitmer signed SB 34 into law, undoing protections that had been in place since 2012. If your employee handbook still references right-to-work protections, it needs an update.

Here is what changed in practice:

• Union security clauses are legal again. Unions can now negotiate collective bargaining agreement provisions that require employees to pay dues, fees, or assessments as a condition of employment. Employers who bargained these clauses out of their contracts after 2012 should expect unions to push for reinstatement at the next bargaining cycle.
• Suspended clauses may revive automatically. Some employers negotiated language that merely "suspended" union security clauses while right-to-work was in effect. Those clauses may already be active again without any new bargaining. Check your existing CBAs carefully.
• Handbook language matters. If your handbook or orientation materials reference employees' right to refrain from union membership or dues payments, that language could now conflict with a valid CBA. Outdated handbook language does not override a lawful union security clause, but it creates confusion and potential grievances.

For non-unionized employers, the practical impact is smaller but still relevant. The repeal signals a more union-friendly legislative environment, and organizing activity in Michigan has increased since 2024. Your handbook's union-related policies should be reviewed for accuracy regardless of whether you currently have a unionized workforce.

The fix: Review all collective bargaining agreements for suspended union security clauses. Update handbook language to remove right-to-work references. Consult with labor counsel before the next bargaining cycle. For non-union employers, ensure your handbook accurately describes employees' rights under current Michigan law without overstating or understating union-related protections.

Sources: SB 34 (2023), Michigan Legislature; Littler analysis of Michigan right-to-work repeal; Michigan Bureau of Employment Relations.

Michigan's Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act (ELCRA) has been the state's primary anti-discrimination law since 1976. But two developments in 2022 and 2023 expanded its scope significantly, and many employer handbooks have not caught up.

The 2022 Supreme Court decision: In Rouch World, LLC v. Michigan Department of Civil Rights, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled 5-2 that discrimination based on sexual orientation "necessarily constitutes discrimination because of sex" under ELCRA. The court applied the same reasoning as the U.S. Supreme Court's Bostock v. Clayton County decision.

The 2023 legislative expansion: The legislature codified the Rouch World ruling through Act 6 of 2023, effective March 31, 2024. But the statute went further than the court decision. It explicitly added protections for gender identity and gender expression, categories the Rouch World opinion did not directly address.

If your EEO policy lists protected categories and does not include sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression, it is incomplete under current Michigan law. The same applies to your harassment prevention policy, accommodation procedures, and any complaint investigation protocols that reference protected classes.

ELCRA covers employers of all sizes with no minimum headcount. It applies to employment, housing, education, and public accommodations. Remedies include back pay, compensatory damages, and attorney's fees.

The fix: Update every handbook section that lists protected categories. Add sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression. Review your harassment complaint procedures to ensure they cover identity-based harassment. Train managers on the expanded protections. This is not a "nice to have" update. It has been enforceable law since March 2024.

Sources: Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act, MCL 37.2101 et seq.; Rouch World, LLC v. Michigan Dep't of Civil Rights, Michigan Supreme Court (July 28, 2022); Act 6 of 2023 (SB 4), ELCRA expansion.

Michigan does not have a single statewide ban-the-box law for private employers. That fact leads many employers to assume they can ask about criminal history whenever and however they want. That assumption is increasingly wrong.

The patchwork works like this:

• Public sector: Executive Directive 2018-4 prohibits state agencies from asking about criminal history on initial job applications. Inquiries are delayed until after an interview or conditional offer.
• Local ordinances: Detroit restricts criminal history inquiries for city employers, vendors with contracts over $25,000, and private employers with 15 or more employees. Ann Arbor delays inquiries until after a conditional offer. Grand Rapids, East Lansing, Kalamazoo, Ypsilanti, and multiple counties have their own versions.
• The Clean Slate Law: Michigan's Clean Slate Act automatically seals certain criminal records after a conviction-free period (ten years for felonies, seven years for misdemeanors). Background checks may not reveal records that have been sealed, and relying on sealed records for employment decisions creates legal exposure.

The practical risk for multi-location employers is real. A uniform hiring process that works in Grand Blanc might violate local law in Detroit or Ann Arbor. And the Clean Slate Act means that records available last year might be sealed this year, so stale background check results can also cause problems.

The fix: Map your office locations against local ban-the-box ordinances. Remove criminal history questions from initial applications for any location where restricted. Build conditional-offer checkpoints into your hiring workflow. Run fresh background checks rather than relying on cached results, and train hiring managers that sealed records cannot be used in employment decisions.

Sources: Executive Directive 2018-4; Detroit Fair Chance Ordinance; Michigan Clean Slate Act, MCL 780.621 et seq.; local ordinances for Ann Arbor, Grand Rapids, East Lansing, Kalamazoo, Ypsilanti, Genesee County, Muskegon County, and Oakland County.

Michigan is one of the states that does not have a standalone state-level pregnancy accommodation statute. Instead, employers navigate a layered system of state anti-discrimination law and federal accommodation requirements, and the overlap confuses a lot of HR teams.

The state layer: The Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act (MCL 37.2202) prohibits pregnancy discrimination for all employers regardless of size. But ELCRA's pregnancy provisions are modeled on disparate treatment theory. That means an employer must treat pregnant employees the same as other temporarily disabled workers, but it does not independently require reasonable accommodations the way a standalone accommodation law would.

The federal layer: The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA), effective June 27, 2023, fills that gap for employers with 15 or more employees. The PWFA requires reasonable accommodations for known limitations related to pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions unless the accommodation causes undue hardship.

Where employers get tripped up:

• Employers with fewer than 15 employees are covered by ELCRA's non-discrimination requirement but not by the PWFA's accommodation mandate. They must not treat pregnant workers worse than similarly situated employees, but they do not have a standalone duty to accommodate.
• The interactive process gap. Many Michigan employers skip the interactive process entirely because they assume state law does not require it. But under the PWFA, failing to engage in an interactive dialogue is itself a violation.
• Light duty policies. If you offer light duty to workers injured on the job but deny it to pregnant employees, that is disparate treatment under ELCRA, regardless of company size. The Supreme Court addressed this issue in Young v. United Parcel Service (2015), and Michigan follows the same framework.

The fix: Audit your light duty and accommodation policies to ensure pregnant employees receive equal treatment. For employers with 15 or more employees, build a PWFA-compliant interactive process into your accommodation workflow. Document every accommodation request and response. Train supervisors that "we don't have a pregnancy policy" is not an acceptable answer.

Sources: Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act, MCL 37.2202; Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA), 42 U.S.C. 2000gg et seq.; Young v. United Parcel Service, 575 U.S. 206 (2015); EEOC final PWFA regulations (April 2024).