New York Enacts ‘Workers’ Bill of Rights’ Notice and Posting Requirements

Quick Hits

• New York City employers will be required to distribute notices provided by city agencies to employees of their rights under federal, state, and local laws beginning in July 2024.
• The notice will be prepared by a collaboration of city agencies and will be published by March 2024.

The New York City Council passed the “Workers’ Bill of Rights” bill, Int. No. 569-B, on November 2, 2013. It was returned by the mayor on December 4, 2023, resulting in the bill becoming law.

The law will require employers to distribute a yet-to-be-published notice to all current employees and “conspicuously post the information” in their workplaces and online if such online systems are regularly used to communicate with employees. Such notice will also need to be provided to all new hires “on or before an employee’s first day of work.”

The notice will be prepared by the Department of Consumer Affairs and Worker Protection (DCWP) in collaboration with the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs (MOIA), the New York City Commission on Human Rights, and employees’ rights groups. According to the law, the notice will be published on the city’s website “[n]o later than March 1, 2024.”

The notice is expected to include information about “rights under relevant federal, state and local law that apply to employees, prospective employees or independent contractors in the city” and also “indicate which rights apply to workers regardless of immigration status.” Significantly, the notice will “also include information about the right to organize a union.”

Employers will further be required to provide the information in English and “any language spoken as a primary language by at least five percent of the employees employed [by] an employer.”

After a first violation, employers that fail to meet the notice and posting requirements could be subject to a $500 civil penalty under the law.

Ogletree Deakins’ New York office will provide further updates when the Workers’ Bill of Rights notice is published on the Employment Law and New York blogs.

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