On May 5, 2021, Governor Andrew Cuomo signed the New York Health and Essential Rights Act (NY HERO Act), which mandates extensive new workplace health and safety protections in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The act sets forth mandatory standards not just for COVID-19, but for all airborne infectious diseases.
Section 1:
Section 1 of the act mandates the commissioner, in consultation with the department of health, to publish “a model airborne infectious disease exposure prevention standard for all work sites, differentiated by industry, to establish minimum requirements for preventing exposure to airborne infectious diseases in the workplace.” The act defines a “work site” to include any physical space, including a vehicle, and employer-provided housing, subject to certain exceptions.
This applies to all nongovernmental public and private employers regardless of size and status, temp employees and individuals making deliveries to a work site.
The following is the tentative roll-out timeline:
- The DOL must develop these industry-specific policies by July 4, 2021 (most likely July 5 since that is a Monday)
- EBC believe that these will be similar to the COVID industry-specific policies New York already has
- Employers will then have until August 3, 2021 to either adopt the model plan or develop their own.
- Employers have until September 2, 2021 to post the plan in a conspicuous location and include it in their handbook. In addition to:
- Distributed to all employees
- Reviewed with employees upon hire
- Distributed and reviewed with all employees upon the reopening after a period of closure due to airborne infectious disease
The standard will address topics such as health screenings, face coverings, personal protective equipment, hand hygiene, cleaning and disinfecting of shared equipment and common use surfaces, and social distancing, amongst other topics.
Employers may either establish a plan that adopts the model standard, or they may adopt an alternative plan that equals or exceeds the minimum standards provided by the model standard. If employers adopt an alternative plan and there is no collective bargaining representative, the employer must develop the plan with “meaningful participation of employees.”
If employees are represented by a union, employers must develop the plan “pursuant to an agreement with the collective bargaining [agreement (CBA)] representative.” Section 1 of the act states that its provisions may be waived by a CBA, provided that the waiver in the CBA explicitly refers to the act.
Section 2: Effective November 1, 2021
Section 2 of the act requires all private employers of ten (10) employees or more to allow employees to establish a joint employer-employee workplace health and safety committee authorized to raise health and safety issues and evaluate workplace health and safety policies.
Employers are required to permit employees to establish and administer a joint labor-management workplace safety committee … composed of employee and employer designees, provided that at least two-thirds are nonsupervisory employees. The act specifies that non-supervisory employees must select the employee members. Where there is a CBA in place, the CBA representative will be responsible for the selection of employees to serve as members of the committee.
Each workplace safety committee and its designees are authorized to perform the following tasks, including but not limited to:
- Raise health and safety concerns, hazards, complaints, and violations to the employer to which the employer must respond.
- Review any policy put in place in the workplace required by any provision of this act and any provision of the workers’ compensation law and provide feedback to such policy in a manner consistent with any provision of law
- Review the adoption of any policy in the workplace in response to any health or safety law, ordinance, rule, regulation, executive order, or other related directive
- Participate in any site visit by any governmental entity responsible for enforcing safety and health standards in a manner consistent with any provision of law
- Review any report filed by the employer related to the health and safety of the workplace in a manner consistent with any provision of law
- Regularly schedule a meeting during work hours at least once a quarter
- Employers are required to permit safety committee designees to attend a training, without suffering a loss of pay, on the function of worker safety committees, rights established under the Act, and an introduction to occupational safety and health
- Provisions of Section 2 may be waived by a CBA, provided that the waiver explicitly references the section
Anti-Retaliation:
In addition, the section 1 and section 2 will provide and contain anti-retaliation provisions, expressly prohibiting retaliation against employees.
Having EBC HR & Payroll Solutions, Inc. on your team allows you to move forward with confidence, knowing that we’re doing right by your employees, doing right by you, and it’s all being done in accordance with all the latest rules, regulations, and laws. Human resources are a vital aspect of any organization and we know that HR personnel can become inundated by laws and regulations as they work to establish HR and Safety policies and procedures. EBC is dedicated to offering solutions for your organization’s human resources challenges. Our philosophy is to provide a comprehensive, wide range of services to all our clients.
For more information regarding on-site HR solutions, please speak reach out to Kelley Siembida, Senior HR Sales Consultant at 716.228.4601 or ksiembida@ebchcm.com