Testimony: Strengthening the Earned Safe and Sick Time Act
Debipriya Chatterjee
Testimony before the NYC Council Committee on Civil Service and Labor
Thank you, Chairperson Carmen de La Rosa, Councilmembers Brewer and Hanif, and to other members of the Committee on Civil Service and Labor for the opportunity to testify today. My name is Debipriya Chatterjee, and I am a Senior Economist at the Community Service Society of New York (CSS), a long-time nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing economic opportunity for working New Yorkers. We use research, advocacy, and direct services to champion a more equitable city and state. We have been especially instrumental in securing paid time off for workers in New York City and State, by working with our collaborators and coalition partners, from some of whom you have already heard today.
Today my testimony will focus on strengthening the city’s Earned Safe and Sick Time Act (ESSTA) by –(a) improving the coverage to include independent contractors (Intro 617), (b) improving the awareness of the law (Intro 0078), and (c) improving the enforcement of the law (Intro 563).
Based on our latest Unheard Third Survey, we know that approximately two-thirds of all covered employees receive paid sick time from their employers. But this statistic masks crucial differences by race and income. For working New Yorkers who are in poverty, only 40 percent reported receiving paid sick time. Among workers who earned slightly more—between 100 to 300 percent of Federal Poverty Level (FPL)—almost 54 percent reported receiving paid sick time. High income workers, i.e., those who earned above 400 percent of the FPL, had a much higher share who reported receiving earned sick time, almost 80 percent.
In other words, our lowest income workers, those who need access to paid sick time the most, are the ones who are being denied this workplace right on a regular basis.
Women workers reported slightly higher rates of receiving paid sick time—68 percent—than their male counterparts. White and Black workers received paid sick time at higher rates—almost 70 percent—than Asian workers (61 percent) and Hispanic/Latinx workers (55 percent).
These low rates of coverage can be traced to a lack of awareness of their workplace rights. Our 2021 Unheard Third Survey showed that over almost half of low-income workers had little to no awareness of New York City’s paid sick time law. What was more concerning was that 51 percent of low-income working mothers had hardly any knowledge of the law at all.
Thus, it is imperative that we undertake a proactive campaign to spread information about this vital law by passing Intro 78.
In the aftermath of the massive scale of public health crisis that the COVID-19 pandemic had brought to the city, it makes little sense to exclude independent contractors from ESSTA. Many, perhaps most, of these workers in the so-called ‘gig economy’ are denied basic employee rights and workplace protections because they are misclassified as independent contractors. We know that these workers provided essential services during the pandemic, when many of us could afford to seek shelter in the safety of lockdown. As a result, the rates of coronavirus infection and, in many instances, deaths, were higher among gig workers.
With the proliferation of app-based hiring companies, the city’s independent contractor workforce has grown in leaps over the last few years, and it is largely made up of workers of color, often immigrants. In the foreseeable future, the size of this workforce is only expected to grow. There is no justifiable rationale to deny these workers access to paid sick time and passing Intro 617 is an urgent imperative.
Even if we improve awareness about the law and reform it to expand the coverage to those who are currently excluded, a law is only as good as the extent to which it can be enforced. At this time, the only agency responsible for overseeing the enforcement of the law is the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP), where an aggrieved worker must file a complaint against their employer. Passing Intro 563 would make enforcement significantly easier by allowing workers to file such a complaint with any court. We believe that the mere possibility that an employee might bring a complaint to any court of competent jurisdiction would deter most employers from denying any employee their right to Earned Safe and Sick Time in the first place. It would also help share the load of the officers at DCWP and expedite the resolution of cases.
In conclusion, I would like to recommend that the Committee and the Council pass these bills to improve access, awareness, and enforcement of the ESSTA and thereby make the city’s workforce healthier, less stressed, and more productive.
Thank you again for the opportunity to present my remarks. If we can be of any further assistance, please do not hesitate to reach out to me, Debipriya Chatterjee, over email dchatterjee@cssny.org.