Construction Reporting Pay Act takes effect December 8, 2026: What New York contractors need to change before the first cancelled shift
Jason Tenenbaum
Special to New York Construction Report
Take an invented example: a concrete subcontractor has a pour scheduled for 6 am on Monday in December. On Sunday night, the plant calls and says their trucks will not be coming. So at 9 pm, the superintendent texts the crew of eight and tells them that they are off for Monday. But after December 8, 2026, that text costs two hours of pay for every worker on that list.
On Sept. 9, 2026, the governor signed the Construction Reporting Pay Act. It’s Chapter 291 of the Laws of 2026. The act goes into effect on the ninetieth day after it became law, which is December 8, 2026.
Private jobs: four hours, or the shift
Labor Law Section 196-e applies to every employee who is engaged in construction as Labor Law Section 861-b defines it. It is not limited to union jobs or public jobs. If an employee reports for work at the request or permission of the employer, the employer must pay at least four hours, or whatever the regularly scheduled shift is, whichever is less, at the promised hourly wage.
And then there’s rule number two, which changes the way you run a schedule. If a shift that was scheduled is cancelled and the employee gets less than twelve hours’ notice, the employer pays the employee two hours at the promised hourly wage. The 9 pm text message in our example only gave nine hours’ notice, so it pays. A crew of eight at $45 an hour costs $720 for one text message.
Public work: the prevailing rate
On public work and other prevailing-wage projects, Labor Law Section 224-g requires two payments at the prevailing rate of wages, including supplements for the worker’s regularly scheduled classification. One payment is four hours when a worker reports to work. The second payment is two hours when a shift is cancelled with less than twelve hours’ notice. The section says it does not apply if the posted prevailing-wage schedule already provides greater reporting pay.
On private jobs, the act says these payments are wages under Article 6 of the Labor Law, and that matters. A worker who sues and wins gets the underpayment plus reasonable attorney’s fees plus prejudgment interest plus liquidated damages equal to one hundred percent of the wages due under Labor Law Section 198, unless you as the employer can prove a good faith basis for believing you paid what the law required. If you don’t pay for two hours, it could come back doubled and with the other side’s legal fees.
Weather and union agreements
This act has no weather exception. The governor’s memorandum of approval states that the bill as drafted created uncertainties where rate of pay and cancellation protocols are established by a collective bargaining agreement, and later notice requirements are appropriate if shifts are cancelled due to inclement weather. The memorandum notes that an agreement was reached with the Legislature to resolve these issues in the next legislative session. Until such time as an amendment is passed, prepare for the act as it was signed.
What to change before December 8, 2026
If a job has a start time of 6 am, then by 6 pm the day prior, decide whether it goes or not, and that includes weather and deliveries. Send every cancellation in writing through one channel, keep it with its timestamp and record when each worker arrived and left.
Know each worker’s promised hourly wage, and have it in writing before they start their first shift. If it’s prevailing-wage work, make sure you know the classification and read the posted schedule for reporting pay. If you’re paying by the day rate, the act talks in terms of an hour; get advice on how to convert it.
The bigger exposure: retaliation
The bigger exposure is not the two hours. It’s what happens after a worker asks for them. Labor Law Section 215 bars an employer from firing, threatening, penalizing or otherwise retaliating against an employee who complains about conduct the employee reasonably and in good faith believes violates the Labor Law. A court awards liquidated damages of up to $20,000 to every employee aggrieved, and may award lost compensation, front pay, costs and attorneys’ fees. The worker has two years to bring an action.
Then there is the whistleblower statute, Labor Law Section 740. An employee who tells a supervisor about something the employee reasonably believes violates the law, or who objects to it, is protected. A complaint to a supervisor that reporting pay was not paid is that kind of disclosure because the Labor Law is a law. Labor Law Section 740 also covers former employees and people working as independent contractors in the employer’s business. The worker gets a jury trial, and the court may award reinstatement or front pay, lost wages and benefits, attorneys’ fees, a civil penalty of up to $10,000 and punitive damages if the violation was willful, malicious or wanton.
Retaliation claims are the heavy claims. If you take someone off the crew because they asked for those two hours, it becomes a retaliation case under the Labor Law and the whistleblower statute. You have to watch what you say and document better. Write down the real reason why you took them off the crew in the file, not just in somebody’s memory.
The cheapest fix is a clock. Make the call by 6 pm, put it in writing, and pay the hours as they’re earned. That’s general information, not legal advice. But if your schedules, your union agreement or your payroll don’t fit the act, talk to a lawyer before December 8, 2026.
Jason Tenenbaum is the founder of the Law Office of Jason Tenenbaum, P.C., in Huntington Station, New York. He handles employment and construction injury cases on Long Island and in New York City; more at jtnylaw.com.
