The American workplace is undergoing a revolution.<\/p>\n
The workplace is not a place simply to do a job and receive a paycheck. If that wasn\u2019t clear before, it has been made abundantly clear in the last year.<\/p>\n
Some of the issues have been brewing for decades. \u00a0In this year\u2019s legislature, they exploded.<\/p>\n
What happens to workers when a business is forced to close due to circumstances beyond the owner\u2019s control?<\/p>\n
What happens when a worker gets sick? Who pays for the worker\u2019s time off?<\/p>\n
Should workers be answerable to their employers for what they do outside work time if their activities pose risks for sickness or injury?<\/p>\n
What happens when the schools close and parents must stay home with their children?<\/p>\n
Should employers have continuing obligations to workers whose jobs are temporary or who work only for a few days?\u00a0 Should employers continue to be obligated to a worker fired for poor performance, drug use, stealing, etc.? How can an employer close the books completely on a terminated employment relationship?<\/p>\n
At what level should small employers be exempt from requirements?<\/p>\n
New Mexico lawmakers tackled some of these issues in this year\u2019s session.<\/p>\n
Legislators introduced a bill requiring employers to provide paid sick leave, one requiring paid family and medical leave (unpaid leave is already federal law), and one that would override existing minimum wage increases with a larger increase. I previously wrote about the bill that would have blown holes in the workers’ compensation system in a misguided attempt to help workers who contracted COVID-19.<\/p>\n
Some legislators might have been prepared to pass all of them, even though the state is not yet fully reopened and nowhere near recovered from the effects of the pandemic business closures.<\/p>\n
Every one of these bills addressed a genuine need. Fortunately, only one of them passed.\u00a0 Unfortunately, it was the sick leave bill.\u00a0 (At this writing, the bill has not been signed or vetoed by the governor.)<\/p>\n
This bill, House Bill 20, is unbalanced and poorly drafted.<\/p>\n
The bill appears to have been written by somebody who never met a trustworthy employer or a dishonest worker.\u00a0 Some of the language looked familiar; it was similar to the local bill defeated a few years ago in Albuquerque.<\/p>\n
As some readers know, I look at work-related legislation from the workers’ compensation perspective.\u00a0 The workers’ compensation system contains numerous tradeoffs between the rights and responsibilities of workers and employers.\u00a0 HB 20 contains no such tradeoffs.<\/p>\n
The bill contains a detailed list of situations \u2013 not just personal illness — \u00a0for which an employee can use sick leave. It describes employer recordkeeping requirements. It details how to penalize an employer for noncompliance. There is nothing about penalizing a worker.<\/p>\n
The bill was amended multiple times, so some problematic features have been ironed out, but it\u2019s still too one-sided.\u00a0 An amendment introduced near the end of the session postpones implementation until July 1, 2022.<\/p>\n
The issues legislators missed may be just as important as the ones they tried to address.<\/p>\n
As a society, we have to figure out these issues.\u00a0 If we want to live in a more humane and less tense world, we\u2019ll have to start paying living wages so that families do not spend their lives worrying about the next paycheck.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re going to have to respect the complicated roles of employers, including small businesses and nonprofits. We\u2019re going to have to figure out how to pay for all these changes. We\u2019re going to have to do this with employer and worker advocates together at the same table, even if it\u2019s a \u00a0Zoom meeting.<\/p>\n
Starting that process should provide a robust agenda for a few interim legislative committees.<\/p>\n
Triple Spaced Again, \u00a9 New Mexico News Services 2021<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The American workplace is undergoing a revolution. The workplace is not a place simply to do a job and receive a paycheck. If that wasn\u2019t clear before, it has been made abundantly clear in the last year. Some of the … Continue reading