Bosses whose workers rarely take a sick day are about to find City Hall looking over their shoulder. Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration is rolling out a data‑driven push to identify workplaces where employees use little or no paid protected time off, arguing that rock‑bottom usage can signal policies that quietly block sick leave. The city’s enforcement arm is handing employers a self‑audit tool to check their own compliance and will mine time‑off data to spot workplaces with possible illegal practices, just as an expanded “protected time off” law takes effect this month.
As reported by The City, the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection has posted a self‑auditing calculator employers can use to see whether their sick‑time usage looks suspiciously low. The agency says it will flag businesses where fewer than 50% of employees used any paid protected time off in the prior year as potential systemic violators. That 50% line comes from an internal analysis of national CDC data, which found that roughly half of private‑sector workers with paid sick leave take at least one day off per year. “If you have sick time usage rates below this number, there’s a compliance problem, and you need to fix it,” an agency official told the outlet.
What the law requires
Local Law 145 amends the Earned Safe and Sick Time Act, broadening the covered reasons for leave and layering on new tracking and notice rules starting Feb. 22, 2026. The changes require employers to front an immediate 32‑hour bank of unpaid protected time on an employee’s first day of work and on the first day of each calendar year, in addition to the baseline paid protected time they already owe. Employers must also display protected‑time accruals and balances on pay statements. Employment attorneys have urged companies not to wait; Davis Wright Tremaine has highlighted the key operational steps employers should take before the law kicks in.
How enforcement will work
Under proposed enforcement rules, DCWP would have the power to order back pay for missed protected time and to levy civil penalties, and legal advisories have already sketched out the potential hit to employers’ wallets. Whiteford Taylor & Preston LLP notes a baseline remedy of $500 per affected employee per calendar year, plus an equal civil penalty, effectively $1,000 per affected worker per year if a practice is found unlawful. That can balloon quickly: advisers point out that a 100‑employee company with a three‑year violation window could be staring at around $300,000 in combined relief and penalties.
What employers should do
Labor counsel are urging employers to start by running the city’s self‑audit, then cleanly aligning their PTO and sick‑leave policies with the new single “protected time off” structure, and revising pay‑stub language so workers can easily see their accruals and balances. Davis Wright Tremaine and other advisers say companies should also train managers on how to handle requests without retaliation and keep detailed, contemporaneous records that can rebut any claim of an unlawful blanket policy. Employers that need clarity have been warned to engage in the rulemaking process and submit comments before the March 2 public hearing.
Legal implications
Attorneys say the proposed rules raise thorny questions about how these local administrative remedies will mesh with existing New York Labor Law rights and private causes of action, and warn that some options previously available in state court could be narrowed. The Department’s proposed rules and the public docket, including the timetable for comments and hearings, are posted on the NYC Rules page…