BILL NUMBER: S7388
SPONSOR: RAMOS
 
TITLE OF BILL:
An act to amend the labor law, in relation to enacting the "remedial
construction of New York labor law act"
 
PURPOSE OR GENERAL IDEA OF BILL:
To reaffirm and clarify for the courts that the New York Labor Law is to
be interpreted and construed liberally in favor of workers to accomplish
its broad remedial purposes.
 
SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:
This legislation amends Article 1 of the Labor Law by adding a new
section stating that the Labor Law's provisions shall be construed
liberally in favor of workers for the accomplishment of the remedial
purposes of the Labor Law, regardless of whether similarly-worded
provisions of federal laws, such as the Fair Labor Standards Act, have
been so construed.
 
JUSTIFICATION:
For many years, New York state and federal courts have recognized that
the New York Labor Law, like the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, was
intended to achieve broad remedial purposes to benefit workers-and that
the Labor Law should accordingly be interpreted in line with those
purposes. The Legislature's broad remedial purposes in enacting the
Labor Law include securing workers' wage floors, ensuring workers'
rights to recover all earned wages and all concomitant liquidated
damages and other remedies, protecting workers from retaliation, secur-
ing equal pay for equal work, and defraying the harms of unemployment.
In recent years, however, federal courts have been moving away from such
broad remedial construction of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, and
toward more restrictive, anti-worker readings. See, e.g., Encino Motor-
cars, LLC v. Navarro, 138 S. Ct. 1134, 1142-43 (2018)(exemptions to the
Fair Labor Standards Act must be given only a "fair reading" and not a
"narrow reading" that benefits workers); E.M.D. Sales, Inc. v. Carrera,
No. 23-217, 604 U.S.
(2025), slip op. at 7-8 (finding employers need only meet preponderance
standard of proof in showing an employee is exempt from minimum wage and
overtime provisions of the FLSA, and stating in dicta that "the public
interest in Fair Labor Standards Act cases does not fall entirely on the
side of employees"). In doing so, courts are damaging longstanding
precedents recognizing that the FLSA must be read in accordance with its
remedial purpose. See, e.g., Greathouse v. JHS Sec. Inc., 784 F.3d 105,
113-14 (2d Cir. 2015) (noting that the Second Circuit has "repeatedly
affirmed that the remedial nature of the FLSA warrants an expansive
interpretation of its provisions so that they will have the widest
possible impact in the national economy.").
 
PRIOR LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:
New bill.
 
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:
To be determined.
 
EFFECTIVE DATE:
This act would take effect immediately.