LIVINGSTON, N.J. July 1, 2026
Employers Association of New Jersey (EANJ) has formally asked state lawmakers and the Acting Commissioner of the NJ Department of Labor and Workforce Development to delay the July 17 effective date of the job restoration provisions in P.L. 2025, c.279, the law expanding Temporary Disability Insurance (TDI) and Family Leave Insurance (FLI).
In a letter sent June 29 to Senator Paul D. Moriarty, Assemblywoman Annette Quijano, and Acting Commissioner Kevin Jarvis, EANJ President Christine Myers laid out findings from outreach to several hundred employers statewide, including in-depth meetings with roughly 100 businesses across industries, business sizes, and sectors including local government, nonprofits, and education.
“Nineteen days is not enough time for businesses to receive, interpret, and act on guidance that doesn’t yet exist, let alone make the business changes needed to comply,” Myers said. “This isn’t a request to walk away from job protection. It’s a request to address the plethora of unintended and burdensome consequences on our employers, remove legal conflicts and get the mechanics right before this law creates liability for which our employers have no real opportunity to prepare.”
EANJ’s letter identifies three of the structural gaps in the law as currently written:
- No undue hardship exception. The law applies the same reinstatement obligation to a three-person landscaping company and a 3,000-person hospital system, with no tenure requirement and no size threshold, unlike FMLA and NJFLA.
- No coordination with FMLA or NJFLA. Employees can exhaust leave under those laws and then trigger a separate reinstatement right under TDI/FLI, stacking job protection obligations rather than running them concurrently.
- No real-time claim notice. NJDOL currently notifies employers of TDI/FLI claims by mail, often weeks or months after filing. Employers can unknowingly violate the law before they’re aware a claim exists.
The law also creates a private right of action effective July 17, meaning employees could file suit on day one under standards NJDOL has not yet defined.
EANJ is asking the Legislature to pair a short delay with a clean-up bill addressing these issues, and has offered to work directly with lawmakers and the Department on both the guidance and the statutory fix.
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Employers Association of New Jersey is a statewide nonprofit employers association based in Livingston, N.J., providing HR compliance guidance, training, and advocacy for New Jersey employers.