NYS law aims to fight workplace illness, empower workers newsday.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from newsday.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Businesses in New York will soon be required to follow minimum standards developed by the state to protect workers from the spread of airborne, infectious diseases under legislation signed Wednesday night by Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
But Cuomo’s approval of the new law came with a caveat businesses will be allowed to correct violations of the new standards to avoid litigation from their workers.
Lawmakers will now have to approve an amendment to the new law to comply with the change. That’s expected to be taken up by the state Legislature in the coming days. Otherwise, the law will take effect on a timeline to be developed by the state.
State GOP seeks to restore work-search rule for unemployment benefits
Marc Levy
The Associated Press
HARRISBURG Republicans in Pennsylvania’s GOP-controlled Legislature are advancing legislation to reinstate work-search requirements for people claiming unemployment benefits, with one survey showing that workers aren’t taking open jobs at a record rate.
The bill cleared the House Labor and Industry Committee on a party-line vote Tuesday.
Lawmakers suspended the work-search requirement through 2020 amid the pandemic last year, and Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, extended the waiver administratively into this year. The bill would reinstate the requirement starting June 8.
Wolf’s office did not say whether he supports or opposes the bill, only that he would review it should it pass the Legislature.
By State House News Service
A little over a month after Gov. Charlie Baker signed a law shoring up the unemployment system and reducing the premium increases facing employers to fund jobless benefits, lawmakers and administration officials are once again looking for a way to provide businesses relief from spiking costs.
The law Baker signed on April 1 authorized $7 billion in borrowing to stabilize the state s unemployment insurance trust fund, strained by a flood of joblessness during the COVID-19 pandemic, and limited the average rate hike to 18.5 percent instead of the nearly 60 percent increase employers would otherwise have to pay.
Some businesses soon found they were nonetheless facing dramatic increases in their unemployment tax payments, as one component of their UI costs, known as the solvency assessments, jumped from a rate of 0.58 percent in 2020 to 9.23 percent in 2021, surprising many.
Marc Levy
A hiring sign offers a $500 bonus outside a McDonaldâs restaurant, in Cranberry Township, Butler County, on Wednesday.
The Associated Press
HARRISBURG Republicans in Pennsylvania’s GOP-controlled Legislature are advancing legislation to reinstate work-search requirements for people claiming unemployment benefits, with one survey showing that workers aren’t taking open jobs at a record rate.
The bill cleared the House Labor and Industry Committee on a party-line vote Tuesday.
Lawmakers suspended the work-search requirement through 2020 amid the pandemic last year, and Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, extended the waiver administratively into this year. The bill would reinstate the requirement starting June 8.