TABS Webinar Report

Manhattan Chamber of Commerce

The applicable labor and employment laws

Speakers:
legal experts Jason B. Klimpl and Andrew P. Yacyshyn

Family’s first corona virus response act
This legislation, which has been titled the family’s first corona virus response act, was signed by President Trump on March 18th. This legislation will actually take effect on April 2nd. The first part of this bill is the emergency paid family leave.

This applies to private employers with less than 500 employees. Eligible employees who can take this leave are those who have been employed by their employer for at least 30 calendar days. It provides these eligible employees with up to 12 weeks of job protective leave where the employee has a need to care for the employee’s minor child if their school or child care has closed due to the corona virus.

The first ten days of this leave can be unpaid. Thereafter, the employees get paid leave for the remainder of the 12 weeks. Which is based on 2/3 of their regular rate of pay and the hours they would normally work. The paid leave is limited to 200 dollars per day and 10.000 dollars in total.

There is an exception for employers with less than 25 employees where the employees position no longer exists due to economic conditions that are caused by the corona virus. There it is possible that they don’t have to restore the employees’ position, if they are not able to do so.

Federal legislation: federal paid sick leave law
For private employers with less than 500 employees. This is available for immediate use, regardless of how long the employee is working for the employer. This is to provide paid sick time for employers who are unable to work and who are absent from employment for any of the following reasons: the employee is subject to an order for quarantine or isolation related to the corona virus, the employee is showing symptoms of the corona virus and seeking to get medical diagnosis, the employee is caring for an individual subject to an isolation order or the employee is caring for a child who’s school is closed due to the virus.

Fulltime employees are eligible to up to 80 hours of sick time. Part time employees are eligible based on what hours they worked six months ago.  The daily limit is 511 dollars or 200 dollars a day depending on the reason why they are taking the leave.

New York State paid sick leave
This goes into effect immediately. It provides for sick leave for employees who are subject to mandatory or precautionary orders of quarantine or isolation as issued by the state, the New York department of health or another governmental entity due to issues related to the corona virus.

• employers with 10 or fewer employees must provide unpaid sick leave for the duration of the quarantine
• employers with 10 or fewer employees but with a net income of greater than 1 million dollars as well as employers with between 11-99 employees must provide 5 days of paid sick leave and thereafter unpaid sick leave.
• employers with 100 or more employees  must provide 14 days of paid sick leave.