A bill introduced this week in the NY City Council would require employers to provide employees paid sick leave for pet care.
Council members Shaun Abreu, Tiffany Cabán, Shahana K. Hanif, and Farah N. Louis have sponsored a measure to amend the Earned Safe and Sick Time Act to include the care of a companion or service animal that needs medical diagnosis, care, or treatment of a physical illness, injury or health condition or that needs preventive medical care.
Currently, the Act affords covered employees the right to use safe and sick leave for the care and treatment of themselves or a family member and to seek legal and social services assistance or take other safety measures if the employee or a family member may be the victim of any act or threat of domestic violence or unwanted sexual contact, stalking, or human trafficking.
Employers with 100 or more employees must provide up to 56 hours of paid leave each calendar year, and employers with 5 to 99 employees must provide up to 40 hours of paid leave each calendar year.
One of the bill sponsors, Shaun Abreu, told Newsweek, “We have an opportunity to use our existing sick time law to encourage pet ownership, which offers cascading benefits for our health and mental health. Keeping our pets healthy keeps us healthy, which is the whole purpose of having a sick leave law to begin with.”
NBC New York notes that “only a small town near San Francisco has any similar sort of in place — and even then, that law only applies to the care of service animals.”
Hey, I’m a dog owner—likely her favorite, as I’m the only member of our household who doesn’t balk at walking her past our property line, onto a sidewalk, and then around the block. And I’m all for employers providing employees with a bank of paid time off to use as they see fit.
But I can understand why a business owner may balk at having a city mandate providing paid time off to care for pets.
If approved, the bill will take effect 120 days after becoming law.