Featured News - Current News - Archived News - News Categories

Hochul signs legislation allowing employees facing potential layoffs to petition employers for shared work program

Submitted

Mon, Oct 25th 2021 12:15 pm

Legislation (S.17-A/A.7373-A) authorizes employees to petition an employer to apply to participate in a shared work program to avoid a reduction in workforce or for rehiring purposes

Gov. Kathy Hochul recently signed legislation allowing employees facing potential layoff to petition employers to participate in a shared work program. Under this amendment to labor law, the majority of employees may submit a request for a shared work program in writing to the employer before the layoff or within 10 days of the layoff.

A press release stated, “The employer then has seven days to respond and is not required to implement the program. This is especially important for ensuring full groups of laid-off workers are rehired when business returns to normal, instead of just smaller portions of workers.”

Hochul said, "In order for our economy to come back stronger than ever from this pandemic, we need to make sure our recovery efforts focus on supporting workers. By allowing for the use of shared work programs in New York, we have added another way for companies to avoid layoffs and keep New Yorkers employed."

The press release noted, “Shared work programs allow employers to reduce all employee hours, but keep the entire staff working, helping avoid layoffs. The state then helps these workers with reduced hours by providing unemployment insurance assistance to cover lost wages. The United State Department of Labor has encouraged shared work programs to help reopen the economy by allowing more workers to be rehired.

“This bill not only helps people stay employed – minimizing unemployment insurance costs – but it also helps businesses keep their well-trained staff instead of laying them off, helping to keep our businesses running smoothly.”

New York State Sen. Shelley B. Mayer said, "The NYS Department of Labor's shared work programs provide businesses and employees the flexibility to weather economic downturns by preventing layoffs, reducing the cost of training new employees, and allowing employees to receive partial unemployment benefits while working on a part-time basis. This law will increase participation in these underutilized programs by empowering workers to request that their employers apply without fear of retaliation. I applaud Gov. Hochul for helping New Yorkers get back to work and build back stronger from the pandemic."

Hometown News

View All News