New York State has long required employers to support working mothers by providing certain accommodations for nursing employees. Last year, the State imposed a written lactation accommodation policy requirement on all employers, following the lead of New York City and California (among other jurisdictions) [see our Insight on the lactation accommodation legislation here]. As of June 19, 2024, employers’ obligations have again expanded: all New York State employers must provide 30 minutes of paid break time for employees to express breast milk for their nursing child for up to three years following the child’s birth.
The obligations are prescribed by an amendment to the State’s breastmilk expression law, New York Labor Law § 206-C (the “Law”), which was enacted as part of a package of legislation accompanying the New York State Budget for Fiscal Year 2024-2025, signed into law on April 20, 2024 by New York Governor Kathy Hochul. Shortly before the Law took effect, the New York State Department of Labor (NYSDOL) published new materials under the headline “Breast Milk Expression in the Workplace,” including general information about the Law, a policy statement, information sheets for employees and employers, and frequently asked questions (FAQs).
As featured in #WorkforceWednesday: This week, we’re breaking down the U.S. Supreme Court’s (SCOTUS’s) new workplace discrimination decision, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (EEOC’s) final rule on the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA), and how recent artificial intelligence (AI) hiring tools have violated federal anti-bias laws.
On April 19, 2024, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC or the “Commission”) published its final rule (“Final Rule”) and interpretive guidance to implement the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA). The Final Rule will take effect on June 18, 2024.
Although the PWFA borrows language and concepts that employers are already familiar with from existing federal protections, the Commission’s proposed rule to implement the PWFA (“Proposed Rule”), issued in August 2023, emphasized that the PWFA’s protections are broader and intended to cover ...
On November 7, 2023, the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirmed the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts’ dismissal of a teacher’s suit against her former employer, Austin Preparatory School (“Austin Prep”), in which she claimed the school fired her for requesting extended leave as an accommodation following multiple surgeries. In Der Sarkisian v. Austin Preparatory School, the First Circuit held that Nancy Der Sarkisian’s request for extended leave, with no end date, was unreasonable considering the circumstances ...
After more than five years in the making (and nearly a full year of delays), on Thursday, October 5, 2023, the World Wide Web Consortium (the “W3C”), the private organization focused on enhancing online user experiences, published the long-awaited update to its Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 (“WCAG 2.1”), known as the WCAG 2.2 (https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG22/#new-features-in-wcag-2-2).
Those who have been following along with website accessibility’s ever-evolving legal landscape are well aware that, despite not having been formally adopted by ...
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