On March 16, 2020, the New Jersey legislature introduced a bill that would prohibit employers from terminating or otherwise penalizing an employee who “requests or takes time off from work” for a “specified period” based on the “written “recommendation” of a New Jersey licensed “medical professional” that such time is required because the “employee has, or is likely to have,” Covid-19, “which may infect others at the workplace.”
Employers would also be required to “hold” the employee’s job open during such absence. Specifically, the Bill provides that employers
“shall not, following that specified period of time, refuse to reinstate the employee to employment in the position held when the leave commenced with no reduction in seniority, status, employment benefits, pay or other terms and conditions of employment.”
A $2,500 fine is proposed for each violation.
The Bill is currently pending and the full text is available here.