The Senate gave a preliminary nod to a labor bill on Tuesday that gives workers the right to earn sick leave time.
The legislation, H.187, has been in the works for more than a decade and was passed by the House last year. The Senate has further altered the bill, as recommended by the business community, and it now has the backing of a majority senators.
Lawmakers approved second reading of the legislation on a voice vote, and Gov. Peter Shumlin immediately issued a statement in support of the legislation as though it is a done deal. Some of the Republican leadership, including Sen. Kevin Mullin, R-Rutland, and Senate President Pro Tem John Campbell, now support earned sick leave and Republican Lt. Gov. Phil Scott has signaled he might support the bill.
But in the final vote today, it’s likely that a number of amendments will be considered on the Senate floor. As Mullin put it on Tuesday: “I guess we’re going to have some fun on the floor tomorrow.”
As H.187 moved to the Senate floor, the Senate Economic Development Committee was still working on clarifications to provisions in the bill. A priority in committee discussions, Mullin said, has been to avoid “any unintended consequences” for businesses.
Among the last-ditch efforts to get the language right was a proposal brought to the committee by Sen. Michael Sirotkin, D-Chittenden. Sirotkin asked the committee to ensure that the categories of sick leave include taking time to settle a sick or elderly family member into a nursing home. He also asked that the drafters find a way to give teeth to the bill by providing an enforcement process that would be “fast and inexpensive.” It is not clear whether these proposals will appear in the bill debated today.
Floor discussion on Tuesday brought an onslaught of queries about the possible effects of the law, but no proposed amendments.
There was the question of what latitude employers and employees have to arrange other ways of coping with absences for sick leave. The answer: Employer and employee can agree to any work-around they wish. In reply to a question from Sen. Jane Kitchel, D-Caledonia, about allowing rescheduling for, say, a part-time worker in a hardware store, Mullin said: “I guess the point is that it’s in the best interest of everyone to encourage trading so you don’t use up days.”
Sen. Dick Sears, D-Bennington, asked why the bill doesn’t simply offer “personal days” to be used at the employee’s discretion. Mullin replied that employers’ benefit packages can take many different forms but in this case the goal was to provide for “paid sick leave” at a minimum. Sen. Sears said he was still “conflicted” on the bill, drawing on his own history as an employer who decided many years ago to simplify time off benefits by giving his employees personal days.
Mullin clarified that “combined time off,” which any business can offer, would not be affected by the bill. Sen. Peg Flory, R-Rutland, asked if under the law a full-time employee could get “12 days off and call it combined time.” Mullin said a business can describe paid leave in any way it wants and “could give 365 days off, if they want to.”
Sen. David Zuckerman, D-Chittenden, said he didn’t see why the name matters. “The point is you need to meet a minimum number of days offered to employees to take time off,” Zuckerman said.
Asked why the policy doesn’t require 24-hour notice from the employee, Mullin said people don’t always know in advance that they are sick or need to help a sick family member. The goal of his committee was to craft a “reasonable policy” on the various issues. Under the present bill, an employer can require a doctor’s note.
Mullin said the committee had worked hard to avoid putting an additional burden on business. The objective, he said, was to “shape the language so employers would not be propelled into reducing existing benefits.” The difficulty, he said, is that “businesses can’t be placed into a set of boxes.”
There were questions about the figures used in deciding how many workers will be affected and what the costs to businesses will be. Mullin said much effort had been made to reduce the cost of administering the new program. The Department of Labor will be able to fold in its new responsibilities without, so far, needing a separate appropriation for it.
The question of exempting smaller businesses such as those with five or fewer employees was raised. An estimate from surveys of how many workers could be affected in businesses with four or fewer employees indicates that there might be as many as 20,000.
The goal of the bill has been to extend paid sick leave to as many of the 60,000 who now have no coverage.
Flory asked what recourse an employer would have if they felt an employee was lying about being sick and, hypothetically, was photographed at a Boston Red Sox game. Mullin replied the employer would have the option of reprimanding or even firing the employee.
