Tag Archives: disability

New York State Passes Law Requiring Employers to Provide Employees Paid Sick Leave

Date
Posted by
New York State Passes Law Requiring Employers to Provide Employees Paid Sick Leave

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has signed the state’s FY 2021 Education, Labor, Housing and Family Assistance Budget Bill into law (Chapter 56, S.7506-B, A.9506-B). The budget, among other things, requires all employers to provide employees with paid sick leave. The amount of paid sick leave an employer is required to provide an employee varies however, based on the size of the business. The new obligation is separate and distinct from the Quarantine Leave Law enacted in response to COVID-19.

Employers with 100 employees or more must provide 56 hours of paid sick leave per calendar year.

Employers with fewer than 100 employees in any calendar year must provide up to 40 hours of paid sick leave per calendar year.

Employers with less than 5 employees and less than $1,000,000.00 in net income shown in the previous tax year, must provide 40 hours of sick leave, but that sick leave can be unpaid.

Employers may set a minimum increment of paid sick leave permitted to be used by an employee at a time but that minimum may not be less than a defined amount.

The law requires that unused sick leave be carried over to the next calendar year, but the employer may limit the amount of sick leave that may be used in a calendar year. Significantly, employers are not required to pay an employee for unused sick leave upon their separation of employment.

The law has a broad definition as it relates to coverage. It covers care and diagnosis for an employee or an employee’s family member, regardless of whether the health condition has been diagnosed or requires treatment at the time of the request. Moreover, the law has a broad definition of what constitutes a family member.

Upon oral or written request, employers must provide information regarding an employee’s accrued paid sick time.

An employer must maintain records regarding the amount of sick leave provided to employees.

The law prohibits employers from discriminating or retaliating against an employee for requesting and using sick leave.

This blog entry is not exhaustive and is not meant to serve as legal advise. It is important that should you have questions regarding the new paid sick leave law in New York State, you contact Gilbert Law Group today at (631) 630-0100.

Can An Employee be Fired for Marijuana Use?

Date
Posted by

With marijuana use becoming legal in an increasing number of states, the courts will become the battleground for deciding whether an employee may be fired for marijuana use. In fact, Colorado’s highest court will decide that very issue in a state where both medicinal and recreational marijuana use have been legalized. The issue: whether a workers’ off-duty, off work-site use of medical marijuana is protected by law. The facts: Brandon Coats is a quadraplegic medical marijuana patient who was terminated from Dish Network after failing a drug test in 2010. Coats never got high at work, but pot’s intoxicating chemical, THC, can stay in the system for weeks. The employer claims that it has a zero-tolerance drug-free workplace policy, and it is therefore irrelevant if Coats was impaired at work.

Coats, 35, was paralyzed in a car accident as a teenager. In 2009, he found that pot helped dissipate violent muscle spasms. Coats was a telephone operator for Dish for three years before he failed a random drug test. He told his supervisors in advance that he would probably fail the test. The lower courts upheld the firing, holding that pot use cannot be considered lawful so long as it violates federal law.

Aside from the narrow issue of state law, there are several important issues in this case. Colorado, like New York and several other states, has a Legal Activities Law which prevents employers from discriminating against employees who engage in off-duty, off work-site activities which are legal. New York also recently made legal the medicinal use of marijuana under certain conditions. Also, under the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) as well as New York’s Human Rights Law, Dish’s termination of Coats may constitute unlawful disability discrimination based on his disability.  There is also the issue of reasonable accommodation of Coats’ disability.

It would appear that where workers are employed in nonhazardous jobs, unless there is some negative impact in the workplace, an employee’s marijuana use may not serve as a basis for discharge. Negative impacts may include smoking or ingesting at work, impairment or being ‘hung over’ at work, poor performance linked to the use, or time and attendance issues.

Also, if the employer receives federal funding, condoning known pot use may jeopardize a federal subsidized project, contract, continued receipt of federal funds, or status as a federal agency employer inasmuch as federal law still prohibits pot use.

This case clearly has nationwide implications as it will impact how companies and other employers treat employees who use the drug both medically and recreationally. It will therefore be interesting to see how Colorado’s Supreme Court rules. Stay tuned.