BONDING LEAVE POLICY

The University provides employees who are parents of a newborn child, a newly adopted child or the sponsor of a new foster care placement with paid leave to allow for a period of bonding with the child. This policy includes parents in same-sex relationships.

Eligibility

Code 100 employees who have completed two (2) years of full-time service (excluding any leaves) prior to birth, adoption or placement of foster care children.

Effective date of policy

This policy applies to all Code 100 employees who give birth, adopt or take into foster care a child on or after December 1, 2004.

Benefit

When the employee is the PRIMARY caregiver, he/she is entitled to up to six (6) weeks of bonding leave at full pay immediately following the birth, adoption or placement of a foster child. (See below for coordination with temporary maternity disability.)

A parent who is NOT the primary caregiver is entitled to one week of bonding leave at full pay following the birth, adoption or placement of a foster child.

Where both parents are NYU employees eligible under this policy, only one parent may be designated as the primary caregiver at a given time. The maximum bonding leave benefit for both parents is six (6) weeks combined including primary and non-primary leave.

The period of bonding leave must immediately follow either the birth and disability period or the adoption/foster care placement date.

An employee is entitled to a maximum of one (1) bondling leave in a twelve month period.

"Parent" includes: (1) the biological parent; (2) adoptive parent; (3) foster care parent; (4) any employee who is legally responsible for a minor child as defined in this policy.

Coordination of bonding leave and maternity disability leave

Childbirth and recovery from childbirth are treated as temporary disabilities. Accordingly, an employee would first be entitled to sick pay pursuant to University policy. Once an employee's sick pay is exhausted, the employee would be entitled to New York State Disability benefits for any remaining period of disability. An employee may, if she elects, use accrued vacation pay or bonding leave pay to supplement NYS Disability benefits, which are less than full pay.

Once the period of temporary maternity disability is over, an employee, if she is the primary care giver, may have up to a maximum of 6 weeks of bonding leave provided that the bonding leave, when added to the period of maternity disability that immediately follows the birth, may not bring the total to more than 12 weeks. For example, if the post-birth disability period is 6 weeks, then the bonding leave may be another 6 weeks, bringing the total to 12 weeks. If the post-birth disability period is 8 weeks, the bonding leave may be another 4 weeks, for a maximum 12 week combination of post-birth disability and bonding leave.

If the employee does not have enough sick pay to cover the post-birth disability period, she may elect to use all or part of her bonding leave pay to supplement New York State Disability benefits, which are less than full pay. The actual amount of bonding leave the employee has available will be determined as described in the examples above and may not exceed six (6) weeks.

University Leave and FMLA

The University provides medical leave and family care leave to eligible employees in accordance with the federal Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 ("FMLA"). If an employee is eligible for FMLA leave, that leave runs concurrently with the periods of University sick and disability leave and paid bonding leave. In no event will an employee's entitlement to leave be less than what employees are eligible for under FMLA. Read about your rights under the Family and Medical Leave Act. An employee wishing to apply for paid bonding leave must complete a Bonding Leave Application for the leave and an FMLA request form.