The New York City Council has passed a bill which would significantly broaden the scope of the City’s Earned Safe and Sick Time Act (ESSTA). The bill, which was sent to the Mayor late last month, proposes to expand the qualifying reasons employees can use leave, grants additional unpaid leave entitlements, and clarifies collective bargaining agreement waivers.
Read MoreAs employers will recall, earlier this year President Biden announced a six-prong COVID-19 Action Plan, which, among other things, required all employers with 100 or more employees to ensure that their workers are vaccinated or periodically tested for COVID-19. Today, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (“OSHA”) issued an Emergency Temporary Standard (the “ETS”) implementing this requirement. Although the ETS imposes a variety of obligations on covered employers, most notably, employers with 100 or more employees are required to either establish a mandatory written vaccination policy for employees, or alternatively establish a written policy whereby unvaccinated employees submit to weekly COVID-19 testing and wear face coverings in the workplace.
Under the ETS, employees must either be fully vaccinated by January 4, 2022, or be subject to the testing requirements discussed below at that time. Other aspects of the ETS, including but not limited to the written policy requirement, face covering requirement, and the additional leave for vaccination and recovery from vaccine side effects, go into effect December 6, 2021.
Read MoreAs we alerted you in our recent advisory, New York now requires employers to provide employees paid time off to get COVID vaccines. In recent guidance, the New York Department of Labor clarified some of the details around this new requirement.
Read MoreOn March 11th, President Biden signed the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (“ARPA”). Employers should take note of two ARPA provisions in particular: (1) Mandatory COBRA premium subsidies and (2) the expansion and voluntary extension of FFCRA leave.
Read MoreLast week, the New York State Legislature passed a bill which would provide paid leave to employees of private employers to be vaccinated against COVID-19. The law requires employers to provide employees with up to four hours of paid time off per vaccine injection unless the employee receives a greater amount of paid time off under a collective bargaining agreement or pursuant to the employer’s policies.
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