The state of New York will bar retaliation against workers for taking legally protected time off, under a new law targeting widely used but controversial points-based attendance policies in the workplace.

Major employers such as Amazon.com Inc., FedEx Corp., and Walmart Inc., have drawn criticism over their use of “no-fault” policies or similar attendance rules, including from members of Congress. Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.), and others called for a US Department of Labor investigation into Amazon’s attendance policy earlier this year.

The issue also has cropped up lately as one of the factors in the railroad labor dispute that President Joe Biden called on Congress to resolve to avoid a major freight rail strike. Major railroad employers agreed to relax their strict attendance policies this year as part of contract negotiations with rail workers’ unions, but several unions still balked at the negotiated deal because of its shortage of paid sick days.

Workplace attendance policies vary by company, but are commonly written to punish hourly workers who take too much time off, sometimes without regard to medical needs or family emergencies.

The New York law isn’t treading entirely new ground in restricting how employers enforce attendance rules. Employers that apply their policies too strictly already can run afoul of federal laws that require employers to grant workers time off in certain circumstances, such as the Family and Medical Leave Act...

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