CBIA working hard to defeat anticompetitive proposals
With the threat of massive tax increases, unsustainable state spending, and a host of costly labor and employment bills, the 2015 legislative session has shaped up to be one of the most worrisome for Connecticut’s business community.
Since January, CBIA lobbyists and their allies have been working hard to stop a slew of proposed labor mandates, which, if enacted, would make many Connecticut businesses much less competitive versus companies from neighboring states.
The most troubling proposals include the following:
SB 1044 and HB 6791 ($15 rule) impose a tax on employers of $1 per hour worked by any employee paid less than $15 per hour. SB 1044 affects employers with 500-plus employees; SB 6791 affects those with 250-plus employees. Both bills apply to franchisors whose local franchises (mainly small businesses) collectively meet or exceed those thresholds. (The bills are based on the misguided view that every employee in the state making less than $15 an hour is a recipient of expensive state services.) The fines collected would amount to nearly $500 million in the first two years alone. But rather than benefit employees in any way, the money would be placed in state accounts for possible use to offset General Fund expenditures.
HB 6784 (paid sick leave) would have expanded the ineffective and costly paid sick leave mandate by applying it to businesses with 10 or more employees rather than the current 50 or more. It also would have expanded the benefit to all hourly employees, increased the number of family members paid sick leave can be used to care for, and increased the number of paid sick days that can be accrued from five days to seven days. The bill died in the Labor Committee, an appropriate result for a proposal that had been met with tepid support, even among lawmakers who supported passage of the current paid sick leave mandate in 2011.
HB 6850 (“pay equity”) prohibits an employer from imposing or enforcing any rule that forbids employees from discussing and/or distributing another employee’s confidential wage information without the other employee’s consent. If adopted, the proposal would leave employers powerless to stop one employee from spreading details about another’s wages against his or her will—creating the potential for serious workplace conflicts and morale issues.
HB 6875 (background checks) prohibits employers from asking a prospective employee to submit to a criminal background check until after the candidate has been offered the job. The bill also prevents employees from having to disclose convictions for “nonviolent misdemeanors that are more than five years old.” Employers are therefore forced to incur hiring expenses for candidates whom, by law, they may never be able to hire.
HB 6877 (janitorial services) requires certain employers to guarantee any person providing janitorial services at their business a minimum of a 30 hour workweek—regardless of whether that person is an employee of that company or a contracted service provider. The janitor unions are pushing hard for this bill despite knowing that it will result in the loss of jobs for many of their members. Further, in order to prevent higher labor costs, businesses will be forced to incur the utility, security, and other costs associated with keeping buildings open to accommodate less expedient cleaning done by fewer service providers.
HB 6932 (paid family medical leave) mandates that employees pay into a system allowing 12 weeks per year of paid leave, during which businesses must continue to provide non-wage benefits. Taxpayers would fund the administration of the program. The legislature’s nonpartisan budgeting office estimated the program would cost taxpayers at least $23 million to set up and administer during its first two years. A nearly identical program in Washington State, however, was estimated to cost nearly $200 million to administer and would have pulled nearly $1.4 billion out of that state’s economy every two years.
HB 6933 (predictability pay) would have required employers that make any changes to an employee’s work schedule less than 21 days prior to the start of a shift to pay that employee predictability pay. The bill failed in the Labor Committee but is a favorite of two prominent Democratic leaders and therefore may come back as an amendment in the final days of the session.
CBIA will continue its efforts to kill or neutralize harmful labor proposals right up to the end of the 2015 legislative session on June 3. For more information, contact Eric Gjede.