[A] new bill takes a step toward getting paid time off for some 60,000 Vermonters.
H.187, sponsored by Rep. Tristan Toleno, D-Brattleboro, represents the most significant compromise in the decade-long campaign to secure paid leave for employees who don’t have that benefit through their employer.
Referred to as the “Healthy Workplaces Bill,” introduced Thursday, it balances the interests between workers’ rights groups and the business community. It’s an agreement both sides can live with, explained Lindsay DesLauriers, director of the Main Street Alliance-Vermont, a nonprofit working to pass the earned time off bill.
The Main Street Alliance is one of a number of organizations that formed a coalition to advocate for the legislation, setting a minimum standard of earned sick time in Vermont.
Toleno’s bill proposes that employees be given a minimum of three days off a year for their own or a family member’s illness or health needs. The days could also be used in cases of sexual or domestic violence, or stalking.
If passed, the legislation would establish a standard of three days of paid time off for the first two years it is in effect. That would step up to five days paid leave as of July 2017.
A Senate version of the bill, S.15, introduced in recent weeks by Sen. Philip Baruth, D-Chittenden, saw two days of testimony in the Senate Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs Committee. His bill called for seven days, or 56 hours, of earned leave off a year, mirroring the federal call for the same, highlighted in President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address.
“These Vermonters are single mothers, minimum wage earners, and people working hard to support their families,” Baruth said, noting that the Senate has already held two hearings on the subject. “I urge the House to pass this bill. For many hardworking Vermonters, waiting another year is just not an option.”
If Vermont passes the bill, it would become the fourth state in the nation, after California, Connecticut and Massachusetts, to enact such legislation, according to DesLauriers. About 20 percent of the state’s workforce would get time off if the bill goes through, she said.
Caleb Magoon, who runs Power Play Sports, has been representing the business community in discussions over the bill.
He said the legislation address three major concerns of Vermont businesses. Business owners have a 500-hour probationary period, a feature of both the House and Senate bills, during which they can vet their employee to make sure they are a good fit.
The bill also give employers some discretion over the benefit, to make sure it’s not being abused. Finally, it phases in the program, so businesses will have time to adjust.
He said the bill this year, having addressed the business community’s concerns, provides something many working Vermonters need.
“Most importantly, this bill will provide a huge benefit to working, middle class Vermonters while allowing business owners to manage their employees as they see fit,” Magoon said.
For his part, Toleno, sponsor of the House bill, said on Friday that he was asked by advocates and the lead sponsor of last year’s effort on the bill, to take it on this year. He said he agreed to, but forged changes to hear the business community in what he brought forward.
“To me, this was a fresh start, it was an opportunity to absorb the feedback that various advocates did throughout the summer and fall,” Toleno said.
“I wanted to hit a sweet spot that would be more likely to attract support, and would be clear that businesses would be asked to be part of a modest and universal system,” said Toleno, and that would give the businesses “… time to absorb that new reality, and that’s the tension that bill aims to take a position on and to try to move forward from that position.”
Businesses already offering paid leave in any form, as long as it meets the minimum of the bill, will not be impacted and required to add more time for employees, which is an important aspect of the bill, stressed Main Street Alliance-Vermont communications director Nick Charyk.
Although the House bill reduces time off from seven days, which the workers’ groups had hoped for, DesLauriers was positive. Data shows that workers will use three to five days on average, she says.
“This whole bill is an enormous compromise,” said DesLauriers.
Though some businesses were concerned about paying benefits to part-time seasonal workers, that makes a big difference for a lot of workers, DesLauriers said. Many people working service industry jobs in Vermont, often cobble together a living juggling multiple part-time jobs.
She said those people often are their family’s breadwinners, and excluding part-time workers from the proposed law was a point the labor groups were inflexible on for that very reason.
Of the compromises in the bill now at the House, Charyk said, “I think it’s an indicator we want this to happen; we brought our best deal to the table.”
Michelle Fay, campaign director for the VT Earned Sick Days Campaign, who works with Voices For Vermont’s Children, the lead organization of the coalition, said that current policy puts many workers in tough positions, forcing them to choose between a sick loved one and a paycheck.
“We are calling on the Legislature to close the gap for the 20 percent of the Vermont workforce who currently do not have any paid time off by establishing a reasonable minimum standard for earned sick leave,” Fay said. “H.187 offers a common-ground approach to providing stability for working families in a way that has been shown to have a neutral or even positive impact on businesses’ bottom line.”
