Upcoming Legal Changes Facing New York Employers – and Five Things to Do Today
Frank Sinatra dubbed New York City as “the city that never sleeps”, but he could just as easily have been speaking about its lawmakers. With the recent flurry of new laws, regulations, and other guidance surrounding workplace obligations that have emerged in the past few weeks, savvy New York employers cannot afford to fall behind the times. Here, are FIVE THINGS that New York City and New York State employers should focus on now to stay in compliance with these new changes:
Update your Lactation Accommodation Policies
Effective June 19, 2024, New York employers will be required to offer paid break time of up to 30 minutes each time an employee needs to express milk for a nursing child. Previously, employers were required only to offer “reasonable” unpaid break time.
Employers should review and revise existing lactation accommodation/break time policies and distribute them to staff. Further, when and if the NY Department of Labor issues a new lactation accommodation policy (which is currently itself required to be distributed to employees) to reflect the changed law, employers should distribute the DOL-drafted notice as well. Importantly, employees should be provided with a written policy regarding the rights of nursing employees at time of hire, annually, and upon an employee’s return to work following the birth of a child.
2. Audit Your Workforce for Exempt Employees Making Less than $43,888/year
Effective July 1, 2024, The Fair Labor Standards Act’s minimum salary threshold for exempt executive, administrative and professional employees will rise from $684 a week ($35,568/yr) to $844/week ($43,888/yr).
In New York, executive and administrative employees are already required to have salaries equal to or greater than $58,458.40 upstate, and $62,400 in NYC, Nassau, Suffolk and Westchester counties. Thus, Executive and Administrative employees in New York should largely be unaffected by this change. However, most employees exempt under the Professional exemption are not required to maintain a salary threshold greater than the floor set by the FLSA of $684/wk/$35,568/yr.
Thus, any employees previously classified as exempt under the Professional exemption making less than $43,888/year may need to be given a pay raise to meet the threshold or reclassified as non-exempt. The decision of whether to attempt to maintain/justify the exemption or communicate a reclassification can involve numerous legal, morale, communications, compression, and budgetary considerations.
Moreover, a second raise to the minimum salary threshold for exempt Executive, Administrative and Professional employees under the FLSA is set to take place on January 1, 2025, when the new threshold will increase to $1,128/wk ($58,656/yr). The time to begin planning for these changes is now.
3. Distribute NYC’s Worker’s Bill of Rights Notice
Effective July 1, all NYC employees must be provided with a notice informing them of their rights under NYC law, as issued by the NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection.
In addition to providing employees with a copy of this notice, the notice must also be posted prominently in the physical workplace, and must be made available on any online platform used to communicate with employees, such as a company intranet.
4. Inform Your Employees About NYC’s Temporary Schedule Change Law
Effective March 4, employers were required to inform employees of their rights under NYC’s Temporary Schedule Change Law and distribute “written and electronic materials” about employees’ rights under this law. Many employers may have already been fulfilling this requirement through a compliant policy in their handbook.
Several new requirements, however, now require that employers (i) post a specific notice of these rights in the workplace, (ii) distribute the poster in writing, and (iii) distribute the poster electronically. It is suggested that this notice be included in an employee handbook. Additionally, this notice must be distributed in English and in any language that is the primary language(s) of 5% or more of the workforce if available on the DCWPA’s website. Notably, “minority” languages can be aggregated to get to 5%!
5. Prepare Now for NY Paid Prenatal Personal Leave
Effective January 1, 2025, New York will require all employers to provide up to 20 hours of paid leave (which can be taken in hourly increments) for health care services related to an employee’s pregnancy. The paid prenatal personal leave will be in addition to existing sick time obligations. However, the law is currently unclear or silent in several respects, such as whether employers can fulfill the obligation to provide paid parental personal leave through providing an equivalent amount of PTO, and what an employer’s rights are regarding suspected fraud or abuse. Finally, the law is also unclear regarding the rights of spouses/partners to attend their spouse/partners medical appointments. It can be expected that the NY DOL will issue guidance in the coming weeks and months regarding this and other questions about this new employee benefit.
