Photo Courtesy of DCWP
City Department of Consumer and Worker Protection Commissioner Lorelei Salas.
By Forum Staff
The City has reached settlement agreements with 11 home care agencies requiring them to pay nearly $450,000 in restitution to more than 4,100 home health aides in order to resolve violations of the City Paid Safe and Sick Leave Law that had previously been filed at the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings, Mayor Bill de Blasio and Department of Consumer and Worker Protection Commissioner Lorelei Salas announced Thursday.
The settlements also require the agencies to pay nearly $122,000 in civil penalties, identify and implement a compliance officer, train managerial staff, and post and distribute the Notice of Employee Rights to all employees, according to de Blasio and Salas.
Under the City’s Paid Safe and Sick Leave Law, employers with five or more employees who work more than 80 hours per calendar year in New York City must provide paid safe and sick leave to employees. Employers with fewer than five employees must provide unpaid safe and sick leave. Domestic workers who have worked for their employer for more than one year must be provided two days of paid sick leave, which is in addition to the three days of paid rest under State Labor Law. All covered employers are required to provide their employees with the Notice of Employee Rights that includes information in English and, if available on the DCWP website, the employee’s primary language. Employers must provide the notice on the first day of an employee’s employment. Employers must have a written sick leave policy that meets or exceeds the requirements of the law.
According to the City, safe and sick leave is accrued at a rate of one hour of leave for every 30 hours worked, up to 40 hours per calendar year, and begins on the employee’s first day of employment. Employees can begin using accrued leave 120 days after their first day of work. For employers who do not frontload safe and sick leave on the first day of a new calendar year, employees must be able to carry over up to 40 hours of unused safe and sick leave from one calendar year to the new calendar year.
DCWP began investigating home health care agencies in 2017 to examine compliance with the Paid Safe and Sick Leave Law. The probe focused on 42 agencies that employ close to 30 percent of home care aides in the five boroughs and included interviews with more than 500 workers and a review of documents provided by workers and employers. According to DCWP officials, the investigation uncovered widespread violations of the law, including not allowing employees to use leave, failing to provide employees with notice of their rights, failing to carry over unused leave, and failing to maintain written sick leave policies that meet or exceed the requirements of the law.
As part of the initiative, DCWP referred two cases that indicated some of the most widespread evidence of noncompliance – including sick leave, wage and hour, and wage parity concerns – to the State Attorney General’s Office for a joint investigation. These cases are still pending.
DCWP also referred 13 home care agencies to the State Department of Health, the State Department of Labor, and the Office of the Medicaid Inspector General for further investigation.
