Paid Family Leave

Paid Family Leave is employee-funded insurance that provides job-protected, paid time off to:

Bond with a newly born, adopted of fostered child;
Care for a family member with a serious health condition; or
Assist loved ones when a spouse, domestic partner, child or parent is called to active military service abroad

Eligilibility:

Employees with a regular work schedule of 20 or more hours per week are eligible after 26 consecutive weeks of employment;
Employees with a regular work schedule of less than 20 hours per week are eligible after 175 days worked;
Citizenship or immigration status is not a factor in your eligilibility;
Currently, only DC37 members in represented collective bargaining units are eligible (see list of represented CBUs below)
See list of represented CBU's below

Benefits:

In 2021, you can take up to 12 weeks of Paid Family Leave and receive 67% of your average weekly wage, capped at 67% of the New York State average weekly wage. Generally, your average weekly wage is the average of your last eight weeks of pay prior to starting Paid Family Leave.

Rights and Protections:

Job protection: Return to the same or comparable job after you take leave;
You keep your health insurance while on leave (you may have to continue paying your portion of the premium costs, if any);
Your employer is prohibited from discriminating or retaliating against you for requesting or taking Paid Family Leave
You do not have to exhaust sick leave or vacation accruals before using Paid Family Leave
Please note you can only be paid from onse source for the time you are out. If you are overpaid, you must repay the source (NYC Health + Hospitals or the insurance carrier) that you received overpayment from

How to Apply: There are four basic steps for an employee to request PFL:

When the PFL is foreseeable, employee must give their Department and the AbSolve carrier at least 30-calendar-days-notice before the leave begins. When the need for a leave is not foreseeable, the employee must give notice as soon as possible.

Employee calls the AbSolve toll free 800-401-2691, Monday-Friday 8:30am - 5:00pm to complete the required application forms by telephone. AbSolve informs the employee what supporting documentation employee needs to submit to AbSolve before the claim is processed. The carrier sends the employee the application to sign and certify its accuracy and also sends the forms to HRSS Leaves to verify the information. Once completed, the forms are signed by HRSS Leaves and sent back to the carrier for processing.

The carrier provides HRSS Leaves with access to data on the status of claims so PeopleSoft can be updated.

The insurance carrier must pay or deny the employee’s request within 18 calendar days of receiving the completed request.

Because of the timing of some leaves that run concurrently or sequentially with FMLA or other leaves of absence, the employee may be paid in error by NYC Health + Hospitals or the insurance carrier. The employee is not entitled to be paid more than 100% of their average weekly wages while on any leave type (PFL or FMLA) and if the employee is overpaid, the overpayment will be recouped immediately.