On July 12, Governor Cuomo signed a bill amending the New York Human Rights Law to prohibit employment discrimination based on "traits historically associated with race, including, but not limited to, hair texture and protective hairstyles." The term "protective hairstyles" includes, but is not limited to, "such hairstyles as braids, locks, and twists." This amendment took effect immediately upon the Governor's signature.
In 2018, Governor Cuomo signed a State Budget bill that included various provisions addressing sexual harassment in the workplace. Among those provisions was a prohibition on including in any written contract a clause requiring the submission of sexual harassment claims to arbitration, except where inconsistent with federal law. On June 26, 2019, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York held, in Latif v. Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC, that this New York law prohibiting mandatory arbitration of sexual harassment claims is inconsistent with the Federal Arbitration Act and is therefore invalid.
Yesterday morning, moments ahead of the parade in New York City to celebrate the Women’s National Soccer Team’s World Cup victory, Governor Andrew Cuomo signed into law two bills related to equal pay. The enactment of this legislation follows allegations made by members of the Women’s National Soccer Team that the U.S. Soccer Federation has engaged in gender-based wage discrimination by paying the Women’s Team less than the Men’s National Soccer Team.
On June 19, 2019, the New York State Assembly and Senate passed legislation that makes sweeping changes to the New York Human Rights Law. This legislation will have a significant impact on the litigation of discrimination and harassment claims filed with the Division of Human Rights and in court. It is expected that Governor Cuomo will sign the legislation soon. The legislation does not apply retroactively, so only future claims under the Human Rights Law will be affected.
In the early morning hours of April 1, 2019, New York State passed its new yearly budget. Though the budget included several items of importance and interest, it was an under-the-radar provision revising paid voting time for employees that caught our attention.
On March 26, 2019, the New York State Court of Appeals issued a ruling that will have a significant positive impact on home care agencies across the state. In a five-to-two decision, the Court upheld the validity of the New York State Department of Labor’s “13 Hour Rule” for cases involving 24-hour live-in care. Under the “13 Hour Rule,” a residential employee assigned to work a 24-hour shift need only be paid for 13 of those hours, so long as he or she is provided with an 8-hour sleep break and three hours of meal breaks. (If the employee’s meal breaks are interrupted, or if the employee does not get five uninterrupted hours of sleep, the employer must pay for the entire break.) Bond, Schoeneck & King, PLLC, participated in the case, representing amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Association of New York State.
On December 11, 2018, the New York Court of Appeals issued a decision (over two dissenting opinions) addressing public access to police personnel and disciplinary records. The Court held that certain personnel records sought by the New York City Civil Liberties Union (“NYCLU”) pursuant to the Freedom of Information Law (“FOIL”) are exempt from disclosure under New York Civil Rights Law § 50-a and New York Public Officers Law § 87(2)(a). In doing so, the Court affirmed the decision of the Appellate Division, First Department, and the broad applicability of Civil Rights Law § 50-a to requests for police personnel/disciplinary records.
The New York State Department of Labor announced recently that it does not intend to implement its proposed regulations that would have imposed burdensome requirements on employers to provide call-in pay to employees under a variety of circumstances not currently covered under existing regulations. The regulations were initially proposed in November 2017, and then were revised in December 2018 after public comments were received and reviewed. The NYSDOL now intends to let the regulatory process expire with respect to the proposed regulations and potentially revisit this issue in the future.
On January 15, 2019, the New York legislature passed the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (“GENDA”). GENDA, which faced more than a decade of impasse in the State Senate, was signed by Governor Cuomo on January 25, 2019.
Although the minimum wage rate under the Fair Labor Standards Act remains $7.25 per hour and the U.S. Department of Labor has not issued any new proposed regulations to raise the minimum salary to qualify for a white-collar exemption under federal law, employers in New York will be required to comply with the new state minimum wage rate and the new state salary threshold to qualify for the executive and administrative exemptions, effective December 31, 2018.
It seems that reports of hackers breaching a business’s security measures to obtain customer information appear on an almost weekly basis. Unfortunately, businesses need to worry not only about the unauthorized access of customer data by hackers, but also the unauthorized access of sensitive employee information as well.
On October 1, the New York State Division of Human Rights issued its final model sexual harassment policy and training guidelines to assist employers in complying with the new sexual harassment legislation that will become effective October 9, 2018. One piece of good news for employers is that the Division's final training guidelines no longer require that employers train all employees by January 1, 2019, as the Division initially proposed. Instead, according to the FAQs, employers will have until October 9, 2019 -- a full 12 months from the effective date of the legislation -- to complete the training for all employees. In addition, the Division's final training guidelines no longer require that new employees complete the sexual harassment training within 30 calendar days of starting their job. Instead, the Division's guidelines simply encourage employers to train their new employees "as soon as possible" after beginning employment.
