NY Governor Signs Amendment to NY’s Retail Worker Safety Act

On February 14, 2025, Governor Kathy Hochul signed Senate Bill S740, a new law that amends several provisions of the NY Retail Worker Safety Act by:

– Extending the deadline by which covered retail employers (those with at least 10 employees) must provide workplace violence prevention policies, training, and notices from March 4, 2025 to June 2, 2025.

– Changing the workplace violence training requirement for retail employers with fewer than 50 employees from at-hire training and annual training thereafter to at-hire training and every-other-year thereafter.

– Eliminating the requirement that retail employers with 500 or more employees install a “panic button” that alerts law enforcement and, instead, requires covered retail employers to install a “silence response button” (“SRB”) that alerts internal staff only.

– Requiring the State to make available for covered retail employers model templates for compliance with these workplace violence policy and notice requirements.

You can read the Senate Bill S740 here.

You can read the NY Retail Worker Safety Act here.