ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — State regulators in New York will soon be able to fine employers who don’t protect workers from airborne infectious disease. A new state law tasks state labor and health officials with coming up with minimum workplace standards around things like personal protective equipment, social distancing and quarantine requirements. Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed the bill into law last week. Employers who don’t comply with the rules could face fines. Some small businesses are concerned about the cost of complying with the law. The director for the New York chapter of the National Federation of Independent Businesses called the law a “magnet for predatory litigation.”
Photo: Contractor Jimmy Griffenkranz demonstrates how a HEPA filter works with a smoke test in the attorney’s podium surrounded by plexiglass in a courtroom at a Manhattan federal courthouse, Friday, March 12, 2021, in New York. What is arguably the nation’s busiest and largest federal courthouse complex took the adage that justice delayed is justice denied to heart when COVID hit. Now, dozens of jury trials in Manhattan are planned with a safety system so extensive that no document will change hands without being sprayed with disinfectant. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)
