Employers will have a batch of newly effective state laws greeting them in the new year, including a novel statute that adds the principle of intersectionality into California's anti-bias framework and New York state's first-of-its-kind paid prenatal leave requirement for pregnant workers.
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Like California, New York is also often at the forefront of pushing the legislative envelope to protect workers, and the Empire State in 2025 became the nation's first to require employers to give pregnant employees paid leave to seek prenatal care.
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Anthony Mingione, a New York-based partner in Blank Rome LLP's labor and employment practice, said the law makes New York the first state to provide all private-sector employees with dedicated paid prenatal leave.
With that comes compliance challenges, the biggest of which may stem from what Mingione says is one of the law's "simplest aspects" — that it adds to existing benefits that employers provide.
"Employers will not be able to comply by simply updating existing policies to include prenatal leave," Mingione said.
Instead, businesses will need to add a separate prenatal leave policy to their existing allotment of paid time off, and will need to track it differently than they do other forms of leave, he said.
"Unlike paid safe and sick leave, which employers can either frontload or accrue, prenatal care leave must be provided immediately and must be frontloaded every year," Mingione said. "It will also be tricky because employers will need to track usage of paid prenatal leave separately from paid safe and sick leave, though there are situations that would qualify under both allotments."
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"5 New State Laws That Discrimination Attys Should Know," by Vin Gurrieri was published in Law360 Employment Authority was published on January 1, 2025.
