Beginning on January 1, 2021, employees will be entitled to take sick leave under the recently enacted New York State Sick Leave (“NYSSL”) law.  The law imposes obligations on all New York employers, but these obligations vary based on a variety of factors.

How Much Sick Leave are Employees Entitled to Take and Must they be Paid During Leave?

The amount of sick leave an employer is obligated to provide an employee varies based on the employer’s size and income.  As note below, these factors also dictate whether an employee must be paid while on leave.

• Employers with 100 or more employees must provide 56 hours of paid sick leave per calendar year.
• Employers with fewer than 100 employees must provide 40 hours of paid sick leave per calendar year.
• If an employer has fewer than 5 employees but generated greater than $1 million of net income in the previous tax year, the employer must provide 40 hours of paid sick leave per calendar year.
• If an employer has fewer than 5 employees and generated less than $1 million of net income in the previous tax year, the employer must provide 40 hours of unpaid sick leave per calendar year.

To ascertain the number of a company’s employees, the company must count all of its employees across all of its business locations within the State of New York.

How Will Sick Leave Accrue?

Under the statute, sick leave generally accrues at a rate of one hour for every 30 hours worked, but the statute also permits employers to make all sick time available at the start of each year.  Moreover, at the end of a calendar year, employers must permit their employees to carryover any unused sick time.

Although employees are not entitled to take sick leave until January 1, 2021, their sick leave began to accrue on September 30, 2020 (i.e. the date on which the statute became effective).

When Can Employees Take Leave?

The law permits an employee to take sick leave because the employee—or the employee’s covered family member—sustained a mental or physical injury or illness.  More specifically, employees are entitled to take leave for the diagnosis, care, treatment, or preventative care for any such illness or injury.  An employee may also take sick leave for an absence related to the employee’s status—or a family member’s status—as a victim of domestic violence, family offense, sexual offense, stalking, or human trafficking.

When an employee takes sick leave, employers are not permitted to require employees to disclose confidential information to verify their need for leave.

What Other Obligations Do Employers Have?

In addition to the above-mentioned sick leave requirements, the NYSSL law also imposes other obligations on employers.  Upon request from an employee, for example, an employer must—within three business days—provide a summary of the amount of sick leave accrued and used by the employee.  The law also makes it unlawful for an employer to retaliate against employees who exercise their rights to take sick leave.