NYC to Investigate Businesses for Sick Leave Violations

- New York City's "Protected Time Off Law," formerly the Paid Safe and Sick Leave Law, requires employers with 100 or more employees to provide up to 56 hours of paid leave per year. Businesses with 5 to 99 employees must provide up to 40 hours of paid leave. - The law mandates that employees earn one hour of sick leave for every 30 hours they work, and it covers part-time, temporary, and undocumented workers who work more than 80 hours in a year within the city. - Originally enacted in 2014, the law initially provided 40 hours of leave and was expanded in 2018 to include "safe leave" for survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, or trafficking. A 2020 amendment increased the leave entitlement for larger employers to 56 hours. - The Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP) can impose significant financial penalties for non-compliance, including fines of $500 for an unlawful denial of leave and restitution for the affected employee amounting to three times the wages they should have been paid. - Since the beginning of the Adams administration, the DCWP has closed 470 cases related to paid sick leave, securing more than $9.8 million in restitution for almost 23,000 workers. - Under the new data-driven enforcement strategy, the city considers an unusually low sick leave usage rate by a company's employees as strong evidence of potential violations, which can trigger an investigation. - As part of the new initiative, the DCWP sent compliance warnings to 56,000 businesses across the city to put them on notice of their obligations under the law. - A recent amendment, effective February 22, 2026, expanded the law to include an additional 32 hours of unpaid protected time off and broadened the acceptable reasons for leave to include things like childcare disruptions and attending housing appointments.