New York City lawmakers this week approved legislation to strengthen the hand of workers who want to bring discrimination or harassment claims against their employers.
The City Council voted 47-1 on Thursday to pass a bill that would void any employer contract that reduces the amount of time workers have to pursue such bias claims. The city’s Human Rights Law currently gives employees a year to file a complaint with the Commission on Human Rights and three years to submit a claim in civil court.
The measure now heads to Mayor Eric Adams for review. His office did not immediately say whether he intends to sign it into law.
Lincoln Restler, a Brooklyn councilmember who sponsored the bill, said in an interview that it would ensure “no employer is able to undermine the rights and protections of workers.” He said that in recent years, more and more employers have inserted provisions in employee contracts that give workers as little as six months to file claims.
Those employers include the Northwell Health system, the state’s largest employer, according to Restler. The company declined to comment on the bill through a spokesperson on Friday.
Agreements shortening the time workers have to bring claims have “turned up in job applications, offer letters, arbitration clauses, employment agreements, and employee handbooks,” according to a 2023 Touro Law Center article. “Where they have been enforced by the courts, the justification has been a prioritization of ‘freedom of contract’ over any other policy concerns,” the article states.
Anne Clark, managing partner of the law firm Vladeck, Raskin & Clark, P.C., and a member of the legislative committee of the New York affiliate of the National Employment Lawyers Association, called the bill’s passage “a major victory for workers in New York City.” Restler credited her with bringing the issue to his office’s attention.
“No employer will be permitted to write itself out of the City’s broad civil rights statute,” Clark said. She added that with as little as six months to file a claim, workers have little time to “find an attorney, have the attorney investigate, and prepare papers for filing. And it does not allow proper time to try to resolve issues informally.”
Clark noted in testimony at a Council hearing in February that many employers include the time-limiting clauses in job applications.
“Even sophisticated employees are unlikely to recall having signed such a provision when they encounter discrimination on the job at a later point,” she testified. “Thus they and their lawyers believe they have a much longer time to file claims and are likely to miss the shortened deadline entirely.”
Thousands of workers across industries stand to benefit from the legislation, according to Clark.
