New York State Enacts Expansive Statewide Sick Leave Law
On April 3, 2020, Governor Cuomo signed into law New York State’s fiscal year 2021 budget, which adds a new section 196-b to the New York Labor Law to include sick leave requirements for New York employers of all sizes, and which the Governor’s office has described as the strongest paid sick leave law in the nation. Although employees may not begin to use sick leave under the new law until January 1, 2021, current employees begin to accrue leave on September 30, 2020. (As discussed in our prior blog, the State also recently passed a COVID-19 sick leave law that provides leave for New York employees who are subject to a mandatory or precautionary order of quarantine or isolation due to COVID-19.) Key provisions of the new law are summarized below. Amount and Accrual of Sick Leave The amount of sick leave an employer must provide employees, and whether such leave must be paid, depends on an employer’s size, and for certain employers, income level. Employers with four or fewer employees in any calendar year must provide employees with up to 40 hours of unpaid sick leave in any calendar year; except that if such an employer has a net income of greater than $1,000,000 in the previous tax year, the leave must be...