Bill Text: NY S04580 | 2023-2024 | General Assembly | Introduced

NOTE: There are more recent revisions of this legislation. Read Latest Draft

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Bill Title: Enacts the "New York city teleworking expansion act"; provides that each agency shall establish a policy and program to allow employees to perform all or a portion of their duties through teleworking to the maximum extent possible without diminished employee performance; defines the term "telework" to mean to perform normal and regular work functions on a workday that ordinarily would be performed at the agency's principal location at a different location, thereby eliminating or substantially reducing the physical commute to and from such agency's principal location.

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 13-0)

Status: (Introduced) 2024-06-07 - COMMITTED TO RULES [S04580 Detail]

Download: New_York-2023-S04580-Introduced.html

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                STATE OF NEW YORK
        ________________________________________________________________________

                                          4580

                               2023-2024 Regular Sessions

                    IN SENATE

                                    February 10, 2023
                                       ___________

        Introduced  by  Sens. COMRIE, BAILEY, BRISPORT, CLEARE, GOUNARDES, JACK-
          SON, KRUEGER, LIU, MYRIE, RAMOS, SALAZAR, SEPULVEDA -- read twice  and
          ordered  printed, and when printed to be committed to the Committee on
          Cities 1

        AN ACT to amend the administrative code of the  city  of  New  York,  in
          relation to enacting the "New York city teleworking expansion act"

          The  People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem-
        bly, do enact as follows:

     1    Section 1. Short title.  This act shall be known and may be  cited  as
     2  the "New York city teleworking expansion act".
     3    §  2. Legislative findings.  The legislature hereby finds and declares
     4  that the health and safety of the population living in  and  around  the
     5  densely populated New York city metropolitan region is a matter of state
     6  concern, as is the economic vitality and the effectiveness of mass tran-
     7  sit in that region, all of which are threatened by the amount of traffic
     8  congestion  inside  of,  and  into,  New  York city, and the overcrowded
     9  buses, subways and railroads within the region.  Traffic  congestion  is
    10  particularly  harmful  to the mass transit bus systems run by the Metro-
    11  politan Transportation Authority,  creating  delays  and  hindering  the
    12  growth  of essential surface mass transportation systems, and the entire
    13  mass transit system  suffers  from  severe  overcrowding.  The  negative
    14  impact of traffic congestion in New York city on the health, economy and
    15  mass  transit systems of the downstate region, as well as the overcrowd-
    16  ing of the region's mass transit systems, were established  at  legisla-
    17  tive  hearings in the spring of 2007, as well as during the hearings and
    18  reports of the legislatively created New York  City  Traffic  Mitigation
    19  Commission.  During these hearings, it was established that a very large
    20  number of New York city employees drive to work both from points  within
    21  New  York  city  and  without,  that  New  York city lacks a working and
    22  adequate telecommuting program for its employees, and that an  effective
    23  telecommuting  program  would  significantly  reduce  the number of such

         EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
                              [ ] is old law to be omitted.
                                                                   LBD00503-01-3
        S. 4580                             2

     1  employees driving to work.  Likewise, a telecommuting  program  for  New
     2  York  city  employees would also allow employees who use mass transit to
     3  work from home, thereby alleviating  the  current  overcrowding  in  the
     4  region's  mass  transit  systems.  Such a program as established by this
     5  legislation would address the state's concern that the  health,  safety,
     6  economic vitality and mass transit operations of the downstate region be
     7  preserved and protected.
     8    §  3.  The  administrative  code of the city of New York is amended by
     9  adding a new section 12-141 to read as follows:
    10    § 12-141 Teleworking programs. a.    As  used  in  this  section,  the
    11  following terms shall have the following meanings:
    12    1.  "City  agency" shall mean a city, county, borough or other office,
    13  position, administration, department, division, bureau,  board,  commis-
    14  sion,  authority,  corporation, public benefit corporation, committee or
    15  other agency of government, the expenses of which are paid in  whole  or
    16  in  part from the city treasury, and shall include but not be limited to
    17  the council, the offices of each elected city  official,  the  board  of
    18  education,  community  boards, the health and hospitals corporation, the
    19  New York city industrial development agency, the offices of the district
    20  attorneys of the counties of Bronx, Kings, New York,  Queens  and  Rich-
    21  mond, and of the special narcotics prosecutor, the New York city housing
    22  authority, and the New York city housing development corporation.
    23    2.  "Telework" shall mean to perform normal and regular work functions
    24  on a workday that ordinarily would be performed at the agency's  princi-
    25  pal  location  at  a different location, thereby eliminating or substan-
    26  tially reducing the physical commute to and from such agency's principal
    27  location. Provided, however,  that  the  different  location  shall  not
    28  conflict with the requirements of any applicable New York city residency
    29  requirements.
    30    b. Each agency shall establish a policy and program to allow employees
    31  to  perform  all or a portion of their duties through teleworking to the
    32  maximum extent possible without diminished  employee  performance.  Each
    33  agency  shall  designate  a "telework coordinator" to be responsible for
    34  overseeing the implementation of teleworking  programs.    All  employee
    35  performance standards shall be reduced to writing with clear metrics for
    36  employee  productivity  success  and failure via teleworking.   Periodic
    37  evaluations shall be  included  in  the  telework  policy  and  program.
    38  Provided,  however, that the provisions of this section shall not super-
    39  sede an existing telework policy and  program  that  is  the  result  of
    40  agreement  between  an  employer  and a recognized or certified employee
    41  organization, unless such existing telework policy and program  provides
    42  less  protection  than  provided  for under this section. Nothing in the
    43  section shall be interpreted  as  discouraging  the  use  of  collective
    44  bargaining  as  the  primary  tool  for developing a telework policy and
    45  program.
    46    c. Eligibility for teleworking shall be  determined  by  a  reasonable
    47  assessment  of  the tasks required by each title or title category, with
    48  recognized or certified employee organization input, and applied  fairly
    49  across the employees within such title or category.
    50    d.  Nothing  in this section shall supersede existing law, regulation,
    51  or personnel policies applicable to employees with injuries,  illnesses,
    52  environmental  health conditions, or disabilities or with the reasonable
    53  application of employee earned leave time including, but not limited to,
    54  sick, compensatory, paid or unpaid family leave, or vacation.
    55    § 4. This act shall take effect on the ninetieth day  after  it  shall
    56  have become a law.