By Claire Davenport
The idea struck New York City Councilmember Shaun Abreu after he learned that one of his staffers had to take unpaid time off to take her cat to the vet. Abreu, a self-described “cat dad” and animal lover, sympathized with his staffer and decided something needed to change.
“We think about animals as our family members,” Abreu told the Rag in an interview. “We shouldn’t have workers choosing between caring for their animals and being able to keep a job.”
So last week, Abreu introduced a bill that would allow workers in New York City to take paid time off to care for their animal companions. Under the city’s existing labor laws, employees can use up to 56 hours of sick leave time to take care of themselves or a family member. Abreu’s bill would expand the Earned Safe and Sick Time Act to include time off for a pet or service animal that needs medical care.
The amendment does not specify which species would be covered – just “legal pets” and “companion animals.” Abreu says if the bill passes, he hopes it will encourage pet ownership and improve mental health for New Yorkers with pets.
“We can all agree that there is a lot more we can be doing to improve mental health in New York City. And one easy way of accomplishing that is by making pet ownership easier,” he said, citing research on how interacting with animals can lower stress levels and reduce loneliness.
Abreu currently has two young cats, Rocky and Nina, adopted a year ago from a shelter in Washington Heights. They had previously been living on the streets in Washington Heights. Abreu said he’s been a cat parent most of his life, and he’s felt the emotional impacts of having a sick pet firsthand.
“I’ll never forget the day she died,” he said, talking about his childhood cat Monina, who passed away after developing a tumor while Abreu was in law school. “I went to my local barbershop. I got a haircut, and I just started crying,” he said.
Pup publication Dogster estimates that over half of New Yorkers own pets – a number that increased significantly during the pandemic as people were confined to their homes. And as pet ownership has increased, their importance in owners’ lives has seemingly kept pace.
According to a 2024 report by Forbes Advisor, a little over 50 percent of dog owners in New York spend more on their dog’s health and grooming than on their own, and data from Pew Research Center shows that 61 percent of pet owners in urban areas consider their furry flatmates to be as much a part of their family as a human member.
This isn’t the first bill Abreu has introduced aimed at protecting animals. He’s also been a vocal spokesperson for Flaco’s Laws, a bundle of bills that aim to protect the city’s wildlife by reducing bird collisions with buildings and changing methods for controlling rat populations. The bill was inspired by the death of Flaco the owl, an escapee of the Central Park Zoo turned city icon, who died with dangerous amounts of rat poison in his system, after colliding with an Upper West Side building.
“I know my colleagues in the city council care deeply about animals,” said Abreu, whose bill is cosponsored by four other members of the 51-member city council. “They care deeply about worker rights and making sure that we have flexible work environments that would encourage positive behaviors.”
Some business representatives, like Kathryn Wylde, the president of the Partnership for New York City, are concerned about the potential paid leave expansions. “At some point, we have to recognize the limitations of what government can or should mandate,” she told The New York Times.
“That argument is very disingenuous – this would add no additional cost to employers. We’re just giving workers more freedom to take time off in a flexible manner,” Abreu said in response.
Abreu is optimistic about getting the bill passed, but first, it would have to get a hearing in the city council’s Committee on Consumer and Worker Protections. If it moved on from there and ever became law, it would make New York City unique in terms of its leave policies – few cities in the country have similar rules on the books.
Going forward, Abreu said he’d also love to see landlords make it easier for tenants to have pets in their buildings, though he isn’t currently purr-suing the issue through policymaking. Still, as he proved with the introduction of this novel bill, anything is paw-sible.
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“….this would add no additional cost to employers. We’re just giving workers more freedom to take time off in a flexible manner.”
Pretty disingenuous response from Abreu! There’s clearly a cost for employers to find replacement staffing, fine if he wants to propose this but be honest about the trade off!
If we’re talking about using the sick leave you are already entitled to for care for an animal, then there is, indeed, no additional cost.
This is a fair point, not how I originally read it. Surely you could take your allocated sick time to take care of sick pets without this requirement?
It only has no cost if employees are already taking their own time off to take care of sick pets, otherwise it is increasing the usage of sick time that employees are entitled to.
Not at my job, and it actually has fairly generous leave policies. I don’t think many, if any, offer this option. I just had to use half a day’s worth of vacation time to take my dog for a procedure.
Employees’ full sick time is an entitlement so a business has to assume those costs regardless.
My God where does NYC find people this stupid? Holy Crap.
Wokeness gone mad! This has become the Left’s mindset – total self-absorption. I want my employer to pay me, whether I work or not. And I want to work from home. Every Friday off. Oh, and I want the government to pay off my student loans, and pay my rent, and pay for my healthcare. It’s startling.
Used to have a saying in the Navy: “Your wife didn’t come in your seabag.” Meaning that your personal life comes after your military obligations. Can’t imagine if I had phoned the ship to tell them I was skipping duty because my cat was sick. !
Oh, and free parking on every block for my Mercedes Benz! It’s unbelievable what people think they’re entitled to from our government.
Sorry I can’t make it today, my hamster has a cold.
This is why I’m debating voting YES on prop 2-6 just out of spite because our city council is so massively stupid and so far gone. Yes, even worse than our mayors imo.
I was not happy to receive Gale’s mailing that only stated her opposition to 2-6 and left out all the positives, especially the positive impact of Prop. 3 which would make the Sanitation Department accountable for picking up trash on medians, etc. I don’t want my tax dollars spent on propoganda.
Fully supportive. I have a goldfish with chronic incurable 3rd degree tinnitus. Requires 24/7 care. Also benefits from milder climates in the winter, preferably Bahamas.
When I was working, I would frequently have to take on additional work due to parents calling in with stories about their sick kids. One day in the ladies room I overheard two women talking about the day off one of them took because of her daughter’s illness. “How is your daughter doing?” one asked. “Oh she’s fine. I just needed a mental health day so I used her as an excuse.” The other woman laughed and said, “I do that all the time too.” Afterwards I had conversations with my friends with kids and they each said they did the same. I’m sure it can be exhausting to work and raise children, necessitating a mental health break now and then. But, going forward, my own mental heath led me to just do my own work and refuse to subsidize anyone who called with such an excuse. I can imagine a similar situation caused by a colleague calling in with a sick pet.
People need to remember that employers expect employees to do actual work. Time off for children’s illnesses and things of that sort is appropriate. Extending this to pets is not, and it would be one more yet of a thousand cuts that make it unattractive for businesses to locate in New York.
Why is it more appropriate for children than pets? Your comment about using (your own) sick leave to take a dog to a vet instead of a kid to the doctor making NY unattractive for business is absurd.
A cold hearted point of view says that children benefit society as a whole by working and contributing to the tax base. Pets benefit only their owners.
There should be no questions as to why the city is in the state it is in.
This would be great I missed most of a whole day of work because I had to pick my dog up from the vet and it took an etr two hours before I could get home. This would be nice
Unserious. He has lost my vote.
Pet’s are a luxury and it is a personal choice to have one. They are not necessary for the successful functioning of the city. Taking PTO to take care of them is perfectly reasonable.
We have real problems, please focus on them.
This representative is a very young 33 years old.
Pets are not a luxury in most cases – they are a great comfort and companion. In a city with so much stress and often much loneliness, they are a blessing. That’s why the churches bless the animals once a year.
Churches bless them as God’s creatures, not for their role as personal pets.
Abreu has also lost my vote.
Unless your company requires you to show some proof that you were sick, what is to stop a reasonably intelligent person from calling in sick and using the time to take care of their animal. I don’t normally encourage lying but it really isn’t that hard. Codifying something like this is just dumb. Don’t they have bigger things to worry about.
Fox News jumps all over dumb ideas like this and uses them to make Democrats look like idiots. We are shooting ourselves in the foot. In addition to “News” and “Politics” this article should be tagged as “MAGA Bait”.
This is sensible. The illness of a pet is like the illness of anyone else in the household–you usually can’t anticipate it and, even if it’s preventive care, you probably can’t control the timing of treatment (my dog’s vet is not open on weekends at all), nor is it optional (I wish it were!).
Is there room to disagree about this, or how exactly to implement it? Sure. But the tone of the comments here–so many of you have so much, and yet you begrudge others every scrap of care. I just don’t understand it.
Hi Sarah,
For better or worse, it appears we are all strangers here.
Not clear that any of us ( you, me or another person) would know or determine that others “have so much”?
I remain confident this humane, rational measure will meet with universal approval — except, of course, among those congenitally incapable of normal human empathy or perhaps turned sour on animals as a result of too many dog bites or cat scratches. Thankfully, one would have to search far and wide to find such people!
Abreu is so right, Anyone who thinks their kid being sick is more important than my dog being sick is clearly a self-centered out of touch whatever.
Most employers will allow the use of vacation or personal days for non-medical emergencies.
This should be easy. Employers should give employees a block of generic days off that they may use as they wish. If they want to use them to go to Disney World, that’s fine. If they have a cold and want to use a day or two to recuperate, that’s also fine. Need a day to nurse your gerbil back to health? Go for it. Any days off in excess of the specified amount are unpaid. If you have a health issue that requires you to take off more time than you have available, that’s what short term disability is for.
Problem solved.
Those days are called vacation days, or if you are lucky in you employment, designated personal days.
That would work. Since it doesn’t involve cruelty, however, and especially cruelty to animals, a lot of folks would never go for it.
You couldn’t make this stuff up. What an absolute clown. This is why the city is in the current shape it’s in.
If paid sick leave is part of one’s benefits, I think they should be entitled to use it for themselves and family members AND the vast majority of pet owners consider their pets to be family members.
One shouldn’t have to explain the who, what and why they’re using their sick day.
If pets are a “luxury”, so are our children.
Children are a luxury – they’re expensive and I couldn’t afford to have them.
I’m glad his cat will be there to comfort him when we vote him out for totally ignoring retirees’ healthcare!
Indeed, we should NEVER vote for any candidate who threatens to take away our healthcare. That would be, at the very least, pure self-loathing.
Not to name names.
You’re absolutely right. Good to know he thinks more about this issue than retiree healthcare. Vote him out.
No one here has ever taken a sick day when they were not actually sick. Such upstanding citizens.
Bravo
Unless they value their job and the contributions of their fellow workers when they decide to cheat their employers. I obeyed the rules during my working years and can now happily retire.
He was glad handing and spoke to me so proudly about passing a “size inclusion” bill protecting overweight and short ppl and my jaw hit the floor. “Crime and grime is all I care about. Fix that and then pursue your passion projects.” Yeah I clearly had no influence but the point remains- if you can’t get done the basics – like clean streets and street crime- you don’t get to play around with stupid things like this. These people are absolute fools. No wonder our city is suffering.
Is this an Onion article?
This is some serious lack of priorities for legislating… ashamed this guy is my councilmember.
We don’t have decent maternity leave which is essential for a child well-being. But taking time off to take care of your canary, yeah…
“Paid Family Leave provides eligible employees job-protected, paid time off to: bond with a newly born, adopted or fostered child, care for a family member with a serious health condition, or assist loved ones when a spouse, domestic partner, child or parent is deployed abroad on active military service….
Paid Family Leave also provides: job protection, continued health insurance, and protection from discrimination or retaliation.”
https://paidfamilyleave.ny.gov/
We could do better, but NY state has a stronger policy than almost anywhere else in the country.
I applaud the Councilmember’s compassion for both animals and working folk.
As a pet owner myself, I see right through this “nothing burger” of a media blitz. Our councilman seems more focused on raising his profile than tackling the real issues impacting our community. He’s clearly trying to appeal to pet owners, but what we need are genuine solutions, not PR stunts.
When it comes to serious topics i.e the new bus lane on West 96th, open streets, and 🅿️. He’s been silent. And his stance on overdevelopment threatens the very character of the Upper West Side.
He doesn’t have a backbone.
The following letter will be sent to Abreu:
Dear Councilman Abreu,
I read of your proposal for ‘Pet-Leave’ in the New York Times, The West Side Rag, and even heard it mentioned on NPR’s Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me.
It has clearly already had an impact. As an UWS resident of your district with a dog and an office job, I could be appreciating this impact.
Instead, I marvel at the degree to which you misjudge priorities.
To wit, the other morning my dog and I left the apartment we rent, whose monthly cost is anywhere between 8% – 24% inflated due to the housing shortage (depending on which model one uses).
We continued to Riverside Park, where we walk each morning, and once again encountered human feces and refuse from the unhoused, due to ineffective social services and enforcement.
Later, I commuted downtown via the train (subject to delays and re-routing) of the historically cash-strapped MTA.
I am well aware the aforementioned are complex issues, on occasion requiring state-resources out of your direct control. I am also aware that me and my UWS neighbors inhabit one of the most pet-dense areas of the city.
Yet, I’m compelled to tell you that the optics of your proposal are, in a word, bad. It is being viewed as frivolous at best, embarrassing at worst — however noble your intentions were in light of your staffer’s pet issue and your own pet household.
I invite you to re-focus your efforts on the aforementioned issues of actual import to my neighbors and me.
This council member is out of his mind!! Isn’t he same one who thinks rats shouldn’t be killed in an “inhumane way”??