NYC Department Of Consumer And Worker Protection Issues New Notice To Be Provided To Current Employees And New Hires – Employee Rights/ Labour Relations

What You Need to Know:

• The New York City Department of Consumer and Worker Protection
  (“DCWP”) is requiring that all City employers
  conspicuously post its Know Your Rights at Work poster by July 1,
  2024, and also provide a copy to current employees and new
  hires.




• The poster contains a QR code that links to the DCWP’s
  website, which includes an overview of the various laws enforced by
  the DCWP including earned safe and sick time, temporary schedule
  changes and fast food worker rights.




• The new “Know Your Rights at Work” posting and notice
  requirements are in addition to notice and posting requirements
  imposed by the DCWP on covered employers under other applicable
  City laws, such as the Earned Safe and Sick Time Act
  (“ESSTA”) and Fair Workweek (FWW) Law.

Last month, the DCWP published its Workers’ Bill of Rights website, as
required by a NYC Council bill approved last year. With it, the
DCWP also published a new poster dubbed “Know Your Rights at
Work,” that employers must “conspicuously post” in
their worksites “in an area accessible and visible to
employees.” The poster can be accessed here.

The poster is a one page document that contains a QR code, which
links to the DCWP’s above-mentioned Workers’ Bill of Rights website. The
website contains an overview of workers’ rights under various
New York City and State, as well as federal, laws ranging from
earned safe and sick time to paid family leave to pay transparency.
As directed by the City Council, the Workers’ Bill of Rights
site includes a statement that: “[i]f you work in NYC, you
have rights regardless of your immigration status.” The site
also contains the contact information for the respective
enforcement agencies like the National Labor Relations Board, the
New York and U.S. Departments of Labor, and the NYC Commission on
Human Rights.

In addition to displaying this new poster, employers must, by
July 1, 2024: (1) provide a copy of the poster to each current
employee; (2) provide a copy to workers hired on or after July 1,
2024, on or before their date of hire; and (3) make the poster
available through other means the employer typically uses to
communicate with employees (e.g., the company intranet). Employers
must ensure that any notice given to employees is not only in
English, but also “any language spoken as a primary language
by at least five percent of employees employed an employer.”
The current form of the Know Your Rights At Work poster is already
in English, Bangla, Spanish, Chinese, French, Haitian Creole,
Korean, Urdu, Polish, Arabic, and Russian.

A violation of this requirement can result in a civil penalty of
$500. However, the law states that first time violators will be
given notice and a chance to correct the violation before any
penalty is imposed.

As noted above, the new “Know Your Rights at Work”
posting and notice requirements are in addition to other such
requirements imposed by the DCWP on covered employers under other
applicable City laws. For instance, the Earned Safe and Sick Time
Act requires covered employers to both post and provide individual
employee notice of the “Notice of Employee Rights: Safe and
Sick Leave” model notice. For more information on NYC
employers’ posting and notice obligations under ESSTA, see our
prior Legal Updates here, here and here.¹

Similarly, the City’s FWW law also imposes notice and
posting requirements on covered employers, e.g., certain employers
in either the retail or fast food industry. For more information on
NYC employers’ notice and posting obligations under ESSTA, see
our prior Legal Update here.

We will continue to monitor the DCWP’s Workers’ Bill of
Rights website and provide additional updates if and when they
occur. With the New York City employment law and national paid
leave landscape continuing to expand and grow in complexity, we
encourage companies to reach out to their Seyfarth contact for
solutions and recommendations on addressing compliance with these
laws and paid leave requirements more generally. To stay up to date
on paid leave developments, please clickhereto sign up for Seyfarth’s Paid Leave
mailing list. Companies interested in Seyfarth’s paid sick
leave laws survey should reach out topaidleave@seyfarth.com.

Footnote

1 This is not the only change coming to NYC ESSTA covered
employers in 2024. As previously reported, on March 20, 2024
amendments to ESSTA went into effect that for the first time
created a private right of action for alleged violations under the
Act.

The content of this article is intended to provide a general
guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought
about your specific circumstances.