Starting Nov. 8, New York employees can do something they’ve never had a legal right to do: ask for their personnel file and get a free copy within five business days. New Labor Law Section 210-b also requires employers to tell employees within 10 days whenever they place negative information in that file.
The law will have a seismic impact on employment litigation and dispute resolution. It gives employees a free, pre-lawsuit look at the employer’s performance narrative and creates a contemporaneous record against which any later performance-based defense will be measured.
Employers that read “personnel record” narrowly to limit notice obligations may find that interpretation works against them in litigation.
The statute defines a personnel record as one that’s “kept by an employer that identifies an employee, to the extent that the record is used or has been used, or may affect or be used relative to that employee’s qualifications for employment, promotion, transfer, additional compensation or disciplinary action.” This includes evaluations, written warnings, and termination notices.
Employers must provide a copy within five business days of a written request and may cap employee-initiated reviews at two per calendar year, not counting reviews prompted by a negative-information notice. Former employees are covered, and records must be kept — without deletions — for three years after employment ends.
If an...
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