On September 28, 2020, the New York City Council enacted Int 2032-2020, “Requiring city employers to provide earned safe and sick time to employees.” This local law amended the city’s Paid Safe and Sick Leave law and becomes effective in two parts.

On September 30, 2020, the following amendments became effective:

• Employers must provide domestic workers with 40 hours of paid safe and sick leave;
• Employers must allow employees to use safe and sick leave as it is accrued;
• Employers must reimburse employees who must pay for required documentation after three consecutive workdays of leave;
• Employers must list on employees’ paystubs (or any document issued each pay period) the amounts of accrued and used leave and the total balance of accrued leave.

As to the fourth amendment, employers that cannot operationalize the documentation requirement by September 30, 2020, but are working in good faith on implementation have up to November 30, 2020 to ensure compliance without a penalty.

On January 1, 2021, the following amendments will become effective:

• Employers with 100 or more employees must provide up to 56 hours of paid leave.
• Employers with four or fewer employees and a net income of $1 million or more must provide paid leave. Prior to the amendments, these employers only had to provide unpaid leave.

The Sick and Safe Leave law has always required employers to distribute a “Notice of Employee Rights” to their employees at the time of hire or within thirty days of the law taking effect and to post the notice conspicuously in their place of work. The “Notice of Employee Rights” has now been updated to reflect the amendments and should be used moving forward.

In addition, the new amendments require that employers with 100 or more employees and employers of domestic workers provide an updated notice of rights to employees by January 1, 2021.

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