With some limited exceptions, California employees are now entitled to accrue and take paid sick leave. California is the second state in the nation to mandate paid sick leave for its employees; Connecticut was the first. But unlike in Connecticut, California’s new paid sick leave law applies to employers of every size.

Here’s how California’s new paid sick leave law works:

To accrue paid sick leave with a particular employer, an employee must work for at least 30 days in a twelve-month period for that employer. The employee accrues at least one hour of paid sick for every 30 hours worked for that employer. An employee may not take paid sick leave, however, until she has worked for that employer for at least 90 days.

The new sick leave law applies to full-time, part-time, per diem and temporary employees in California, with limited exceptions. Providers of publicly-funded In-Home Supportive Services are exempt, as are employees covered by collective bargaining agreements. Airline employees on the flight deck in the cabin crew are also exempt from the new law as long as they are compensated in an equal amount by an airline policy.

Most full-time employees will accrue a bit more than 64 hours of paid sick leave in a year, but employers may cap the amount of paid leave employees can take in a year at 24 hours. A “year” can be defined by the employer as either (1) a year of employment; (2) a calendar year; or (3) a twelve-month period. Employees may “roll over” their accrued paid sick leave from one year to the next, but an employer may limit the total amount of paid sick leave the employee has “in the bank” to 48 hours.

If an employee works for a particular employer fewer than 90 days in a year — i.e. a seasonal employee — and returns to that same employer within the next twelve months, the paid sick leave the employee had accrued the prior year will be reinstated, if the accrued time was not paid out the employee when she left.  If the employee returns to the employer more than twelve months later, she must start accruing paid sick leave as if she were a new employee.

The new law sets minimum standards for California employers. Many California employers provide more flexible paid time off policies that can be used for sick leave, vacation or personal time. As long as these policies result in at least 24 hours of total paid sick leave in a year, they comply with the law.

An employee may use paid sick leave for preventative care or actual sickness, for themselves or a family member — a spouse, registered domestic partner, child, parent, grandparent or sibling. An employee may take less than a full day off; this is particularly handy when an employee sees a doctor for an annual physical. But the employee can require the employee to use at least two hours of paid sick leave at a time.

An employer may use one of two methods to calculate how much to pay an employee when she takes paid sick leave: (1) the employee’s regular rate of pay for the week in which she took the leave; or (2) total wages (excluding overtime) divided by the employee’s total hours work in full pay periods over the prior 90 days.