Bill Text: NJ A5437 | 2020-2021 | Regular Session | Introduced
Bill Title: Requires employers to discharge employees who have tested positive for or are exhibiting symptoms of coronavirus disease 2019 from worksite until employees may safely return to work.
Sponsorship: Partisan Bill (Democrat 2)
Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2021-03-08 - Introduced, Referred to Assembly Labor Committee [A5437 Detail]
Download: New_Jersey-2020-A5437-Introduced.html
Sponsored by:
Assemblywoman VALERIE VAINIERI HUTTLE
District 37 (Bergen)
Assemblywoman ANGELA V. MCKNIGHT
District 31 (Hudson)
SYNOPSIS
Requires employers to discharge employees who have tested positive for or are exhibiting symptoms of coronavirus disease 2019 from worksite until employees may safely return to work.
CURRENT VERSION OF TEXT
As introduced.
An Act concerning the discharge of employees who have tested positive for or are exhibiting symptoms of coronavirus from worksite.
Be It Enacted by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey:
1. a. Every employer that requires or permits its workforce, whether in part or as a whole, to be physically present at a worksite to perform work shall, to protect employees, customers, and all others who come into physical contact with its operations, immediately separate and discharge from the worksite any employee who appears to have symptoms, as defined by the Centers for Disease Control, consistent with coronavirus disease 2019 upon arrival at work, who exhibits symptoms during the day, or who the employer knows to have tested positive for or have been exposed to coronavirus disease 2019.
The employer shall prohibit the employee from returning to work, until such time, in accordance with the guidelines promulgated by the Centers for Disease Control, and based upon the date of the employee's symptoms, positive test, or known exposure, the employee has been sufficiently isolated from the worksite and may safely return to the worksite without risking others to exposure.
b. Nothing in this act shall relieve an employer that is subject to P.L.2018, c.10 (C.34:11D-1 et seq.), the "Family Leave Act," P.L.1989, c.261 (C.34:11B-1 et seq.), P.L.2020, c.9 (C.34:11D-12), or federal leave laws from continuing to be subject to the requirements of those laws, including by allowing individuals to use accrued leave in the manner permitted by law and employer policy, when requiring employees to leave the worksite in accordance with the provisions of this act.
c. "Employer" means any business, educational entity, individual, non-profit, partnership, association, corporation, and the State and any county, municipality, or school district in the State, or any agency, authority, department, bureau, or instrumentality thereof, or any person or group of persons acting directly or indirectly in the interest of an employer in relation to an employee.
2. This act shall take effect immediately, and shall expire upon the termination of the public health emergency issued by the Governor in response to the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic.
STATEMENT
This bill requires employers to discharge employees who have tested positive for or are exhibiting symptoms of coronavirus disease 2019 from worksite, or who the employer knows to have been exposed to the virus, until the employees may safely return to work in accordance with guidelines promulgated by the Centers for Disease Control.
Nothing in the bill relieves an employer that is subject to State or federal leave laws from continuing to be subject to the requirements of those laws, including by allowing individuals to use accrued leave in the manner permitted by law and employer policy, when requiring employees to leave the worksite in accordance with the provisions of the bill.
Under the bill, "employer" means any business, educational entity, individual, non-profit, partnership, association, corporation, and the State and any county, municipality, or school district in the State, or any agency, authority, department, bureau, or instrumentality thereof, or any person or group of persons acting directly or indirectly in the interest of an employer in relation to an employee.
