New York Employers Required to Provide Paid Leave for Prenatal Healthcare Appointments and Lactation Breaks and COVID Leave is Expiring

Fast Facts:

  • Effective January 1, 2025 New York employers are now required to provide 20 hours of paid leave for prenatal healthcare appointments.

  • This leave is in addition to all other statutory required leave (i.e., Family Medical Leave Act, Earned Safe and Sick Time Act, etc.).

  • Effective June 19, 2024, New York employers are now required to provide employees with up to 30 minutes of paid break time to express breastmilk.

  • Effective July 31, 2025, New York employers’ requirement to provide COVID-specific paid leave when employees were under a mandatory or precautionary quarantine order is repealed.

In what seems to be a tradition now, the New York State Legislature included within its budget passage a key employment change for New York employers. This year, such change included requiring employers to grant 20 hours of paid leave during a 52 week period to use for prenatal healthcare appointments. Such grant, effective January 1, 2025, is as amendment to the New York State Paid Sick Leave Law and in addition to the New York Paid Family Leave Law. The prenatal healthcare appointments are defined as “health care services received by an employee during their pregnancy or related to such pregnancy, including physical examinations, medical procedures, monitoring and testing, and discussions with a health care provider related to the pregnancy.” Such leave may be taken in hourly increments, rather than any larger time blocks. Payment, at an employee’s regular rate of pay (or minimum wage, if greater), is also stipulated to be in hourly increments. Additionally, like other New York State leave laws, the provisions includes an anti-discrimination  and retaliation provision in response to employees who request or take such leave.

Additionally, a provision in the budget requires New York employers, effective June 19, 2024, to provide employees with up to 30 minutes of paid time (in addition to any existing paid break or meal time) each time an employee has a reasonable need to express breastmilk. Currently, employers are only required to provide unpaid time.

Lastly, in a rare move of taking away paid leave, the budget also included removing employers’ obligation to provide paid leave for employees subject to a mandatory order of quarantine or isolation related to COVID, effective July 31, 2025. However, employees are still entitled to use any available leave under any other applicable statutes (i.e., New York Paid Sick Leave Law).

What Do I Need to Do?

Employers should update any relevant handbooks and/or policies to include these new provisions, and train staff to understand the new leave and break entitlements. This may also be a good time to remind managers and supervisors about the accommodation process and other pregnancy-related leave laws.

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