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.
NEW YORK STATE ASSEMBLY MEMORANDUM IN SUPPORT OF LEGISLATION submitted in accordance with Assembly Rule III, Sec 1(f)
BILL NUMBER: A1435A
SPONSOR: Rozic TITLE OF BILL:
An act to amend the administrative code of the city of New York, in
relation to enacting the "New York city teleworking expansion act"
PURPOSE:
To increase teleworking in New York City agencies.
SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:
The bill amends the New York City Administrative Code by adding section
12-140 to require New York City agencies establish teleworking programs
while maintaining protections for collective bargaining agreements and
paid leave.
JUSTIFICATION:
Congestion is a problem in New York City, requiring thoughtful solutions
that do not unnecessarily overburden New Yorkers. Teleworking offers an
opportunity to reduce congestion and Complement efforts to reduce
government issued parking placards. The federal government and many
states and municipalities have established teleworking policies to get-
workers out of their cars, and not merely to reduce congestion.
Teleworking has been shown to increase productivity and retention while
reducing absenteeism. Private sector based strategies include tax cred-
its for businesses against the cost of planning, training and capital
purchases necessary to establish a teleworking program (i.e., Georgia),
or merely free consulting and training for businesses interested in
establishing teleworking programs (i.e., Connecticut).
Numerous jurisdictions have established successful teleworking programs
for government employees. Arizona, for example, required (and achieved)
201 of state government workers in busy Maricopa County (including the
City of Phoenix) to telework. Virginia has required that each state
agency should have 25% of its employee's teleworking by 2010. The feder-
al government requires its agencies to establish teleworking programs
for its employees, and over 100,000 federal employees participate.
New York City should be required to establish a teleworking program for
its employees, with appropriate goals for the percentage of city workers
teleworking.
LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:
2022: A457A (Rozic) - Cities
2021: A457 (Rozic) - Cities
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:
Minimal.
EFFECTIVE DATE:
This act shall take effect on the one hundred eightieth day after it
shall have become a law.
STATE OF NEW YORK
________________________________________________________________________
1435--A
2023-2024 Regular Sessions
IN ASSEMBLY
January 17, 2023
___________
Introduced by M. of A. ROZIC, SIMON, FORREST, SEAWRIGHT, GONZALEZ-ROJAS,
EPSTEIN, MAMDANI, GALLAGHER, COLTON, ZINERMAN, COOK, REYES, BURGOS,
MITAYNES, JACKSON, CARROLL, HEVESI, DINOWITZ, ARDILA, RAGA, FALL --
read once and referred to the Committee on Cities -- committee
discharged, bill amended, ordered reprinted as amended and recommitted
to said committee
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
24 employees driving to work. Likewise, a telecommuting program for New
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
[] is old law to be omitted.
LBD00503-03-3
A. 1435--A 2
1 York city employees would also allow employees who use mass transit to
2 work from home, thereby alleviating the current overcrowding in the
3 region's mass transit systems. Such a program as established by this
4 legislation would address the state's concern that the health, safety,
5 economic vitality and mass transit operations of the downstate region be
6 preserved and protected.
7 § 3. The administrative code of the city of New York is amended by
8 adding a new section 12-141 to read as follows:
9 § 12-141 Teleworking programs. a. As used in this section, the
10 following terms shall have the following meanings:
11 1. "City agency" shall mean a city, county, borough or other office,
12 position, administration, department, division, bureau, board, commis-
13 sion, authority, corporation, public benefit corporation, committee or
14 other agency of government, the expenses of which are paid in whole or
15 in part from the city treasury, and shall include but not be limited to
16 the council, the offices of each elected city official, the board of
17 education, community boards, the health and hospitals corporation, the
18 New York city industrial development agency, the offices of the district
19 attorneys of the counties of Bronx, Kings, New York, Queens and Rich-
20 mond, and of the special narcotics prosecutor, the New York city housing
21 authority, and the New York city housing development corporation.
22 2. "Telework" shall mean to perform normal and regular work functions
23 on a workday that ordinarily would be performed at the agency's princi-
24 pal location at a different location, thereby eliminating or substan-
25 tially reducing the physical commute to and from such agency's principal
26 location. Provided, however, that the different location shall not
27 conflict with the requirements of any applicable New York city residency
28 requirements.
29 b. Each agency shall establish a policy and program to allow employees
30 to perform all or a portion of their duties through teleworking to the
31 maximum extent possible without diminished employee performance. Each
32 agency shall designate a "telework coordinator" to be responsible for
33 overseeing the implementation of teleworking programs. All employee
34 performance standards shall be reduced to writing with clear metrics for
35 employee productivity success and failure via teleworking. Periodic
36 evaluations shall be included in the telework policy and program.
37 Provided, however, that the provisions of this section shall not super-
38 sede an existing telework policy and program that is the result of
39 agreement between an employer and a recognized or certified employee
40 organization, unless such existing telework policy and program provides
41 less protection than provided for under this section. Nothing in the
42 section shall be interpreted as discouraging the use of collective
43 bargaining as the primary tool for developing a telework policy and
44 program.
45 c. Eligibility for teleworking shall be determined by a reasonable
46 assessment of the tasks required by each title or title category, with
47 recognized or certified employee organization input, and applied fairly
48 across the employees within such title or category.
49 d. Nothing in this section shall supersede existing law, regulation,
50 or personnel policies applicable to employees with injuries, illnesses,
51 environmental health conditions, or disabilities or with the reasonable
52 application of employee earned leave time including, but not limited to,
53 sick, compensatory, paid or unpaid family leave, or vacation.
54 § 4. This act shall take effect on the one hundred eightieth day after
55 it shall have become a law.
