Starting on January 1, 2025, all New York employers shall be required to offer eligible staff with 20 hours of paid prenatal go away (“Paid Prenatal Go away”) throughout any 52-week interval for well being care companies throughout or associated to their being pregnant. The regulation was initially handed in Might 2024 by Governor Kathy Hochul, and amends New York Labor Regulation § 196-b, the state’s Paid Sick and Protected Go away regulation. On December 2, 2024, the New York Division of Labor (“NYDOL”) launched a long-awaited sequence of FAQs (the “FAQs”) clarifying a lot of excellent questions concerning the regulation’s software. The regulation is the primary of its sort in the US, and gives paid, protected go away for pregnant staff separate and aside from different obtainable go away choices. Key highlights of the Paid Prenatal Go away regulation are summarized beneath.
Eligibility for Paid Prenatal Go away
Paid Prenatal Go away applies to all New York private-sector employers with no minimal worker threshold. The FAQs broadly outline “private-sector employers” to incorporate “individuals, companies, restricted legal responsibility corporations, or associations using any particular person in any occupation, trade, commerce, enterprise, or service, no matter part-time and time beyond regulation exempt standing.”
Whereas Paid Prenatal Go away is on the market to each full-time and part-time staff, solely staff who instantly obtain prenatal well being care companies are coated by the regulation, and never spouses, companions or different assist individuals. The regulation permits coated staff to make use of Paid Prenatal Go away for a number of pregnancies inside a 52-week interval, however caps the whole go away obtainable to twenty hours in any 52-week interval. Said otherwise, unused prenatal go away doesn’t seem to hold over from yr to yr.
Permitted Makes use of for Paid Prenatal Go away
The regulation defines “paid prenatal private go away” to incorporate “bodily examinations, medical procedures, monitoring and testing, and discussions with a well being care supplier associated to the being pregnant.” The FAQs additional make clear that the regulation covers fertility remedies, resembling in vitro fertilization, and end-of-pregnancy care appointments, however doesn’t apply to post-natal or postpartum appointments.
Accrual Not Required for Paid Prenatal Go away
The FAQs make clear that the regulation doesn’t require staff to accrue Paid Prenatal Go away or work for an employer for a minimal period of time earlier than accessing Paid Prenatal Go away. As such, all staff, together with new hires, shall be entitled to twenty hours of Paid Prenatal Go away per yr after January 1, 2025.
Discover of Paid Prenatal Go away
The NYDOL encourages staff to offer employers superior discover of go away requests and encourages employers to speak find out how to request go away to their staff. On this regard, the NYDOL advises coated staff that they need to request Paid Prenatal Go away through the use of current notification and request procedures inside their office.
Compensation for Paid Prenatal Go away
Staff should take Paid Prenatal Go away in hourly increments, and should obtain compensation at their common fee of pay, or the relevant minimal wage established pursuant to New York regulation, whichever is larger. Employers will not be required to pay an worker for unused Prenatal Go away on the time of termination or separation from employment.
File-Preserving Obligations
Whereas the regulation doesn’t particularly require record-keeping on pay stubs or in go away accrual banks, the NYDOL advises that it’s “greatest apply for employers to take care of clear data of accessible sorts of go away and quantities of go away utilized in a fashion accessible to each the employer and worker.” It will likely be particularly necessary for employers to file the date Paid Prenatal Go away is first taken, as that is the “triggering date” for the rolling 52-week interval contemplated by the regulation.
Interplay With New York Paid Sick Go away
The FAQs clarify that Paid Prenatal Go away is a separate worker profit from go away obtainable underneath New York’s Paid Sick Go away Regulation (which gives for not less than 40 or 56 hours of go away per yr, relying on the scale of the employer). An employer might not require an worker to decide on one go away sort over one other or require an worker to exhaust one sort of go away earlier than utilizing Paid Prenatal Go away.
Paid Prenatal Go away is in any other case topic to the identical necessities as Paid Sick Go away. For instance, an employer might not, amongst different issues: (i) require the disclosure of confidential details about an worker’s well being situation(s), resembling medical data, as a situation of offering Paid Prenatal Go away; or (ii) penalize, discriminate or retaliate towards an worker for requesting or taking such go away.
Key Takeaways for Employers
These new additions to New York’s Paid Sick and Protected Go away regulation signify a major development in the advantages afforded to pregnant employees and set a precedent for different states to observe. Though New York is the primary state to mandate such go away, the regulation aligns with present tendencies demonstrated by recently-enacted federal legal guidelines, together with the Being pregnant Employees Equity Act and the Offering Pressing Maternal Protections for Nursing Moms (“PUMP”) Act, which afford employment protections to pregnant and nursing staff. New York employers ought to take steps to make sure compliance with the brand new regulation, together with revising their worker handbooks and sick go away insurance policies and coaching supervisors and human sources personnel. As all the time, Sheppard Mullin is on the market to offer steerage and assist to employers as they adapt to those new necessities.