The NY DOL Issues Guidance on COVID-19 Sick Leave
On January 20, 2021, the Commissioner of the New York State Department of Labor (DOL) issued new guidance on New York’s COVID-19 Sick Leave Law (“Sick Leave Law”), which was enacted on March 18, 2020. (A copy of the guidance can be found here.) As discussed in our previous blog post, the Sick Leave Law requires New York employers to provide varying levels of paid and unpaid sick leave (depending on employer size and net income) and access to expanded paid family leave and temporary disability benefits to employees subject to an order of quarantine or isolation due to COVID-19. All employees, regardless of the size of their employers, are entitled to job protection upon their returns from leave. The Guidance (which supplements the DOL’s earlier guidance on the use of leave) is summarized below: An employee who returns to work following a period of mandatory quarantine or isolation need not be tested before returning to work, with a limited exception for nursing home staff. If, however, an employee subsequently tests positive for COVID-19, the employee must cease reporting to work and is entitled to leave under the COVID-19 Sick Leave Law (“COVID-19 Sick Leave”) even if the employee already received sick leave for the first period of quarantine or isolation. Similarly, an employee who...