Enacts the remedial construction of New York labor law act

Showing the cosponsors who are on Agora, A to Z. The official record may list more.

• Democratic1

Shown in neutral colors by design; Agora is non-partisan.

◆ The sponsor's argument

Why Jessica Ramos says this is needed

For many years, New York state and federal courts have recognized that the New York Labor Law, like the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, was intended to achieve broad remedial purposes to benefit workers, and that the Labor Law should accordingly be interpreted in line with those purposes. See, e.g., Int'l Franchise Ass'n v. City of New York, 148 N.Y.S.3d 28, 29 (2021) ("(t)he Labor Law provisions were promulgated to protect workers and ensure their adequate and fair compensation"); Republic Steel Corp. v. New York State Dep't of Lab., 75 A.D.2d 658, 659, 426 N.Y.S.2d 345, 347 (3d Dep't 1980) ("(t)he history of the Labor Law and court decisions demonstrate that the sole purpose of the law is the protection of the working person"); Koljenovic v. Marx, 999 F. Supp. 2d 396, 399 (E.D.N.Y. 2014) ("The New York Labor Law is a remedial stat- ute designed to combat and eliminate employment 'at wages insufficient to provide adequate maintenance for THE EMPLOYEES and their fami- lies.'"). The Legislature's broad remedial purposes in enacting the Labor Law include securing workers' wage floors, ensuring workers' rights to recover all earned wages and all concomitant liquidated damages and other remedies, protecting workers from retaliation, secur- ing equal pay for equal work, and defraying the harms of unemployment. In recent years, however, federal courts have been moving away from such broad remedial construction of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, and toward more restrictive, anti-worker readings, in the guise of giving them a "fair reading." See, e.g., Encino Motorcars, LLC v. Navarro, 138 S. Ct. 1134, 1142-43 (2018) (exemptions to the Fair Labor Standards Act must be given only a "fair reading" and not a "narrow reading" that benefits workers); E.M.D. Sales, Inc. v. Carrera, No. 23-217, 604 U.S. (2025), slip op. at 7-8 (finding employers need only meet the preponder- ance standard of proof in showing an employee is exempt from minimum wage and overtime provisions of the FLSA, and stating in dicta that "the public interest in Fair Labor Standards Act cases does not fall entirely on the side of employees"). In doing so, courts are damaging longstand- ing precedents recognizing that the FLSA must be read in accordance with its remedial purpose. See, e.g., Badger v. City of Cortland, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 96624, at *9 (N.D.N.Y. May 31, 2024) ("Though the FLSA is a "remedial" statute, the Supreme Court has rejected the idea that exemptions in the statute should be read narrowly to reflect that purpose."). This trend is also growing with respect to other federal laws designed to protect workers. Since there are a number of provisions in the Labor Law and its accompa- nying regulations that have similar or identical wording as the Fair Labor Standards Act, there is a real risk that courts will import these restrictive, anti-worker interpretations of the Fair Labor Standards Act, its accompanying regulations, and other federal laws into interpre- tations of the Labor Law. See, e.g., Gorey v. Manheim Serv. Corp., 788 F. Supp. 2d 200, 205 (S.D.N.Y. 2011) (noting that "New York law govern- ing overtime pay is defined and applied in the same manner as the FLSA."). And there is also a significant risk that this same restrictive type of statutory ò interpretation will be applied to New York's unique worker protections that have no federal equivalent, including but not limited to longstanding protections against illegal deductions and theft of promised wages under Article 6 (Payment of Wages) and protections for whistleblowers (Article 20-C), as well as newer protections such as the Warehouse Worker Protection Act (Article 21-A) and the Fashion Workers Act (Article 36). This bill provides that the Labor Law's strong remedial protections for workers shall be interpreted accordingly. It clarifies that provisions of the Labor Law and accompanying regulations that are worded comparably to federal laws or regulations, as well as worker-protectiv

This is the sponsor's own case for the bill, quoted from their memorandum. It is not Agora's description of what the bill does.