There’s a quiet change to New York City’s sick-leave law that takes effect today, and it touches nearly every private-sector worker and employer in the five boroughs.
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As of Thursday, July 23, a new set of city rules formally folds the familiar “safe and sick time” into a broader category the law now calls “protected time off” — and it locks in an extra bank of hours that employees can tap right away. The rules were finalized by the city’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, the agency that enforces the Earned Safe and Sick Time Act — the law that requires most businesses operating in New York City to provide safe and sick leave to the people who work for them.The headline change: employers must now make an additional 32 hours of unpaid protected time off available immediately upon hire and again at the start of each calendar year. Unlike leave that workers slowly accrue hour by hour, these hours are available from day one. Employers can also choose to satisfy the requirement by offering some or all of that time as paid leave instead.
There’s a wrinkle worth knowing if you have both kinds banked. According to employment-law firm Mintz, when an employee has both paid and unpaid protected time available, the employer generally has to apply the paid time first — unless the worker specifically asks to use the unpaid hours.
The change builds on amendments that took effect earlier this year, which widened the list of reasons New Yorkers can use the time. Beyond a personal illness or a family member’s, workers can now use protected time off to respond to a public health emergency or public disaster, to deal with the fallout of workplace violence, to care for a child or other care recipient, and to attend legal proceedings tied to subsistence benefits or housing. Separately, the law provides up to 20 hours of paid prenatal leave within a 52-week period.
For most employees, the practical takeaway is simple: the reasons you’re allowed to take job-protected time have grown, and there’s a fresh block of hours on the books that you can use without waiting to earn it. For employers — including the city’s small businesses, whose compliance headaches City Hall recently pledged to ease elsewhere — today is the deadline to have updated policies, handbooks and payroll systems that reflect the new “protected time off” language and the immediately available hours.
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The DCWP handles complaints and enforcement, and can order penalties and back pay where it finds violations. New Yorkers who think their workplace isn’t following the rules can file a complaint with the agency.New York City’s paid-leave law has been among the most expansive in the country since it first took effect more than a decade ago, and city officials have steadily broadened it. Today’s rules are the latest step — and for anyone who works in the city, it’s worth a look at your next pay stub or employee handbook to see how the extra hours show up.
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