On February 14, 2025, the New York Retail Worker Safety Act, initially set to take effect March 4, 2025, was amended (S.B.740), and the new effective date moved to June 2, 2025.
On September 4, 2024, New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed the New York Retail Worker Safety Act (the Act) (S.B. 8358-C/A. 8947-C) into law. The Act, which adds Section 27-e to the New York Labor Law, requires employers with ten or more retail employees to develop and implement workplace violence prevention programs. The law also mandates employers provide training on the workplace violence programs and to install silent response buttons (SRBs) in retail stores, defined as stores that sell “consumer commodities at retail and not primarily engaged in the sale of food for consumption on its premises.”
New York joins a broader trend of state legislatures enacting laws to address growing concerns of workplace violence, driven by the rise in mass shootings, and, in the retail sector, large-scale, coordinated shoplifting and increasing confrontations and violence against retail workers. For example, on July 1, 2024, California’s Workplace Violence Prevent Act, which we previously covered here, went into effect and applies broadly to most private-sector California employers with additional requirements for healthcare facilities and other industries with a high risk of workplace violence. Notably, other states have workplace prevention laws, though many are specifically focused on the...
By Daniel Dale, CNN (CNN) — President Donald Trump again turned a Cabinet meeting into a wide-ranging conversation with reporters – and again uttered a whole bunch of false claims in the process. ...