BILL NUMBER: S6344

SPONSOR: GOUNARDES
 
TITLE OF BILL:

An act to amend the workers' compensation law, in relation to paid fami-
ly leave for public employees not represented by an employee organiza-
tion

 
PURPOSE OR GENERAL IDEA OF BILL:

To eliminate the public employee carveout for paid family leave

 
SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:

Section one amends section 212-b of Workers Compensation Law to elimi-
nate the paid family leave carveout for non-unionized public employees.
Unions representing public employees would retain the discretion to
negotiate for paid family leave under WCL § 212-b(3)(a).

Section two sets the effective date.

              

 
JUSTIFICATION:

New York's landmark paid family leave (PFL) law, first enacted in the
FY2017 budget (Ch. 54 of 2016, Part SS) pays 67% of an employee's Aver-
age Weekly Wage (AWW), which is the average wage of the last eight weeks
prior to taking leave, for up to 12 weeks. Employees can take PFL so
long as they have worked at least 25 or 26 weeks, depending on if they
are full- or part-time, and have a "qualifying event," defined as the
birth or adoption of a child, the placement of a child in foster care,
needing to care for a child because of a physical or mental disability,
needing to care for a close relative because of a serious health condi-
tion, or assisting a loved one when a family member is deployed on
active military service.

In the private sector, the vast majority of employees are provided PFL
as coverage is mandated automatically for their employers. In the public
sector, however, employers must either proactively opt into the benefit
for non-unionized employees or it must be provided as part of a collec-
tive bargaining contract for unionized employees.  This has resulted in
an incredibly uneven landscape for PFL coverage in our state, wherein it
is broadly available for employees who work for private companies and
almost non-existent for state and local government employees without a
labor contract.

This bill addresses this disparity by mandating that public employers
provide PFL at the same level as their private sector counterparts,
while retaining the discretion that labor unions have to negotiate PFL
at the bargaining table (it is worth noting that many labor unions in
NYS have already negotiated leave policies that provide 100% AWW).

The legislature created our state's paid family leave program in 2016 so
that no worker would have to choose between caring for a sick family
member and putting food on the table. This bill proposes a simple reform
to expand PFL in the public sector to ensure that employees never have
to make such a choice.

 
PRIOR LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:
None

 
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:

TBD

 
EFFECTIVE DATE:
This act shall take effect on the one hundred eightieth day after it
shall have become a law.