As you know, last year, New York passed the Retail Worker Safety Act, amending New York labor law to strengthen workplace violence prevention for retail employees. This law applies to retail employers with at least 10 employees, and requires such employers to:
- Adopt a state model or develop their own plan that outlines potential risks to retail workers, including late shifts, handling money, or working in isolation. The plan must detail measures to prevent violence and ensure protections against retaliation for reporting risks.
- Provide interactive training that includes:
- examples of measures retail employees can use to protect themselves when faced with workplace violence from customers or other coworkers;
- de-escalation tactics;
- active shooter drills;
- emergency procedures; and (vi) instruction on the use of security alarms, or buttons, and other related emergency devices.
New York has now amended the law, which was set to take effect on March 3, 2025. Now, the law will take effect on June 2, 2025.
The amended law also changes requirements regarding retail worker requests for assistance. Now, by January 1, 2027, employers with 500+ retail employees statewide will be required to provide every retail employee with a silent response button to request immediate assistance from a security officer, manager, or supervisor while the employee is working in case of an emergency. The button may be a device that is installed in an easily accessible location in the workplace, or a wearable or mobile phone-based button. The previous version of the law required the provision of panic buttons.
Employers must also, at the time of hiring and at every workplace violence prevention training, provide employees a notice containing their retail workplace violence prevention policy and the information presented at the employer’s workplace violence prevention training program.
The training must be provided to all retail employees upon hire and on an annual basis thereafter, except employers employing fewer than 50 retail employees must provide training only upon hire and once every two years thereafter. As part of this training, every employer must communicate to each employee a site-specific list of emergency exits and meeting places in case of emergency.
You can access the amended law here.
