Paid Prenatal Leave Law Changes Coming to New York City
Effective July 2, 2025, the New York City Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (“DCWP”) is amending rules related to the Earned Safe and Sick Time Act (“ESSTA”).
The ESSTA requires employers in New York City to provide each employee up to 40 or 56 hours of accrued safe/sick time each calendar year. Section 196-b of the Labor Law similarly requires that employers provide each employee in each calendar year up to 40 or 56 hours of sick leave. Additionally, effective January 1, 2025, Section 196-b of the Labor Law was amended to require that every employer provide its employees twenty hours of paid prenatal personal leave during any 52-week calendar period. This paid prenatal leave requirement is in addition to the accrued sick leave every employer must provide to its employees each calendar year.
These rule amendments incorporate into ESSTA by reference the paid prenatal leave requirements set forth in Section 196-b of the Labor Law. Among the various requirements of the rule amendments the following are of note:
Employers must provide a benefit of 20 hours of paid prenatal leave during any 52-week calendar period in addition to the up to 40 or 56 hours of safe/sick time employers must provide each calendar year.
An employer is not permitted to require an employee to use other leave in lieu of paid prenatal leave, exhaust other leave before using paid prenatal leave, or use or exhaust paid prenatal leave before using other leave.
An employer may not request or require that an employee disclose their medical condition or the nature of the health care services as a condition of providing paid prenatal leave.
Upon mutual consent of the employee and the employer, an employee’s schedule may be changed in lieu of using paid prenatal leave. However, an employer may not require an employee, as a condition of taking paid prenatal leave, to work additional hours to make up for the original hours for which such employee used paid prenatal leave or to search for or find a replacement employee to cover the hours during which the employee uses paid prenatal leave.
The rule amendments also include certain notice and disclosure requirements as follows:
For each pay period where an employee uses paid prenatal leave, the employer must inform the employee of the of the amount of paid prenatal leave used during the relevant pay period and the total balance of paid prenatal leave available for use, either on the pay statement or in separate written documentation.
Employers must also maintain, in an accessible format, contemporaneous, true, and accurate records that show this information for each employee for each pay period.
Employers to ensure their paid prenatal leave policy includes the availability of a separate bank of 20 hours of paid prenatal leave during any 52-week calendar period.
The rule amendments provide that employers may take disciplinary action against an employee who uses paid prenatal leave for purposes other than those described in Section 196-b(4-a) of the Labor Law.
An employee seeking relief for alleged violations of the ESSTA may be entitled to:
The full amount of any underpayment of wages, with interest; (2) liquidated damages up to 100% of the unpaid wages, unless the employer has a good faith basis for the underpayment; and (3) for prohibited retaliation, all appropriate relief, including injunctive relief, liquidated damages not more than $20,000, rehiring or reinstatement and an award of lost compensation, or an award of front pay in lieu of reinstatement and an award of lost compensation.
An employer is liable for penalties, including, but not limited to: (1) for prohibited retaliation, a civil penalty of not less than $1,000 nor more than $10,000; and (2) for underpayment of wages, a civil penalty of $500 for each failure to pay wages owed.
