New York City Passes Paid Sick Leave Law

The City of New York recently passed the Earned Sick Leave Act, a new law that will require employers in New York City to provide employees a minimum amount of sick leave per year. Specifically, employers will have to provide at least 1 hour of sick time for every 30 hours an employee works, with a maximum requirement of 40 hours of sick time to an employee each year. It only applies to employees, not independent contractors. It does not apply to professional employees, even if they are paid by the hour.

Initially, employers with more than 20 employees must pay employees during the required sick leave. Eventually, that requirement will apply to companies with at least 15 employees. Smaller employers will only be required to provide unpaid sick leave. Companies will be permitted to count paid time off, such as paid vacation, personal days or days of rest, toward the required paid sick time, and can count other paid or unpaid time off toward the required unpaid sick time.

New York City employees will be entitled to use their sick leave time for their own mental or physical illness, injury, medical diagnosis, or preventive medical care; or to care for a family member who needs care or treatment for a mental or physical illness, injury or health condition, a medical diagnosis, or preventive medical care. The law defines family members to include the employee’s child, parent, spouse, domestic partner, or the child or parent of the employee’s spouse or domestic partner. Employees also will be able to use sick leave if their workplace or their child’s school or childcare provider is closed by a public official due to a public health emergency.

The new law indicates that employees can carry over sick time that they did not use in one year to the next, unless the company decides to pay them for their unused time. Companies are not obligated to let employees use more than 40 hours of sick time in a single year. But employers are not required to pay employees for their unused sick time, even when the company lays them off or fires them.

The Act includes an anti-retaliation provision which prohibits employers from threatening, disciplining, firing, demoting, suspending, reduction hours, or taking any other adverse employment action against any employee because he exercised (or attempted to exercise) his rights under the law. Importantly, it requires employees who want to bring a legal claim to file a complaint with the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs within 270 days after he knew or should have known about a violation. The law also includes provisions to protect the identity of individuals who bring claims under it, presumably out of concerns for workplace privacy.

The Earned Sick Leave Act will not begin to go into effect until April 1, 2014, at the earliest, and will be fully in effect by October 2016, at the latest. Once the law goes into effect, employees will begin to earn sick time. However, companies do not have to allow employees to use their sick time for 120 after it goes into effect. Similarly, companies do not have to permit employees to begin using this sick leave until 120 after they begin their job.

In New York City, New York State and New Jersey, numerous laws can protect your right to take time off from work when you or a close family member is sick. This includes the Family & Medical Leave Act (FMLA), the New Jersey Family Leave Act (FLA), Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and New York and New Jersey anti-discrimination laws that require employers to provide reasonable accommodations for disabilities. If your employer has violated your employment law rights, please call Rabner Baumgart Ben-Asher & Nirenberg at (201) 777-2250.