Yonkers Insider: [PRESS RELEASE] NEW YORK STATE SENATOR BIAGGI AND THE NYS SENATE PASS LEGISLATIVE PACKAGE TO HELP SMALL BUSINESSES BUILD BACK FROM COVID-19.

 

SENATOR BIAGGI AND THE NYS SENATE PASS LEGISLATIVE PACKAGE TO HELP SMALL BUSINESSES BUILD BACK FROM COVID-19.

ALBANY, NY – Today, State Senator Alessandra Biaggi, together with the New York State Senate Majority Conference, advanced legislation to support small businesses that have taken the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic. This action builds on legislation passed in July 2020 to help hardworking New Yorkers and struggling small businesses. The legislative package advanced by the Senate Majority includes protecting small businesses from eviction and foreclosure with the COVID-19 Emergency Protect Our Small Business Act, protecting restaurants from third-party delivery fees, implementing third-party restaurant posting requirements, promoting the shared work eligibility program, freezing unemployment insurance rates, and establishing a partial-unemployment system.

State Senator Alessandra Biaggi (D-Bronx/Westchester) issued the following statement:

“The pandemic has financially devastated so many of the small businesses at the heart of our communities. In order to rebuild our local economies and revitalize our neighborhoods, we must provide our small businesses with the financial relief and market protection that they need to recover and remain open. I am proud to join my colleagues in the Senate to pass legislation that will support District 34's small businesses, and thank the bill sponsors for their leadership to move this package forward.”

The bills advanced by the Senate Majority, and co-sponsored by Senator Biaggi, include: 

• Small Business Eviction and Foreclosure Moratorium: This bill, S.471A, sponsored by Senator Anna Kaplan, establishes the COVID-19 Emergency Protect Our Small Business Act to protect small businesses with COVID-19 related financial hardships from eviction and foreclosure until May 1st. 

• Third-Party Restaurant Posting: This bill, S.1630A, sponsored by Senator Diane Savino, prohibits any third party food delivery platform from listing, selling or advertising products of any food service establishment without a written agreement with them.

• Restricting Third-Party Delivery Fees: This bill, S.1554B, sponsored by Senator Brian Kavanagh, creates a maximum limit for the total fee that can be charged to a food service establishment by a third-party food delivery service (such as Grubhub, Seamless, Postmates, Doordash, etc.)

• Increased Outreach From DOL on the Shared Work Program: This bill, S.18A, sponsored by Senator Shelley Mayer, creates a requirement for the Department of Labor to increase their efforts to provide information to employers about shared work program eligibility and have information available on the Department's website. The shared work program can help reduce layoffs and is fully funded by the federal CARES Act during the pandemic.

• Freezing Employers Unemployment Insurance Premiums: This bill, S.1197, sponsored by Senator Roxanne Persaud, freezes New York State’s unemployment insurance experience rating for one year for layoffs and closures that occurred due to COVID-19. This action will prevent significant increases in costs to employers who have experienced higher unemployment rates in 2020. 

• Partial Unemployment Insurance: This bill, S.1042A, sponsored by Senator Jessica Ramos, establishes a system of partial-unemployment. This would shift the current calculation that any day of work leads to a 25% reduction in benefits, and instead would reduce benefits by an amount proportional with the amount earned. This legislation will help incentivize part-time work by reducing the disincentive that a day of work will lead to a disproportionate reduction of benefits.