New York Passes Trailblazing Paid Family Leave Starting in 2018

On March 31, 2016, the New York State Legislature passed a bill that included the country’s most wide-ranging paid family leave law. Beginning in 2018, all full-time and part-time workers employed for 6 months in New York State will be eligible for a guaranteed, job-protected 12 weeks of paid family leave (PFL), regardless of the size of their company. PFL covers time off to bond with a new child (including adopted or foster children), or to care for a seriously ill child, spouse, domestic partner, parent, grandchild, grandparent, sibling, or the parent of a spouse or partner parent. In addition, employees may also use PFL to address certain legal, financial, and childcare issues related to the military service of a spouse, domestic partner, child, or parent. Starting in 2018, employees will receive 8 weeks of paid leave at half their salaries. The leave will be funded by employees through payroll deductions, will gradually phase up over 4 years to 12 weeks and 67 percent of pay in 2021.  Employee payroll contributions will cost from .70 cents a week up to $1.40. After the full benefits kick in, workers will be eligible for just 67% of the state’s average weekly wage, or a maximum of $848 per week for the highest paid workers. The PFL requires no additional contributions from employers or taxpayers.  The legislation also guarantees job protection for all workers who take leave, even those who work for businesses with fewer than 50 employees, which are not subject to the federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). Within the same budget bill, the New York legislature passed a $15 minimum wage increase along with a middle-class tax cut, public education and transportation investments, and other progressive measures. The emphasis on family comes following personal challenges faced by New York’s Governor Andrew Cuomo and the evolution of the fight for workers’ rights, shifting from just a women worker’s issue to a broad workforce concern. New York now joins New Jersey, California and Rhode Island as the only states that offer paid family leave. Despite a national 12-week unpaid family leave policy, in the United States overall, about 40% of employees are not covered under the FMLA because their employers have fewer than 50 employees, they work too few hours, or they have been employed there for under a year. For more information regarding the potential impacts of this legislation or how your business can prepare to develop a compliant paid family leave policy, please contact Dina M. Mastellone, Esq., Chair of the firm’s Human Resources Practice Group, at dmastellone@genovaburns.com or 973-533-0777.