At first glance, the bill for Paid Family Leave which State Senate Majority Leader Steve Sweeney (D-Gloucester) shepherded through the Senate, and which Governor Corzine says he will sign into law looks like a winner. But start unpacking its provisions and, what you find is a fractured law which needs fundamental change, before it even hits the street.
This new legislation applies only to companies with fewer than 50 employees. Larger companies are already required to provide paid family leave and to hold the job until the employee returns – not so for smaller companies.
The new proposal is for firms with fewer than 50 employees. It will provide up to six weeks for a parent to care for a newborn or adopted child, or to care for a sick parent, spouse, or child. The benefit, to be funded by an employee payroll tax of $33, will replace up to two-thirds of a person’s pay, with a $524 weekly limit.
But there is at least one major, built-in problem-in-the-making. It’s the hardly trivial possibility that, under this legislation, a worker effectively can be fired for going on family leave. Here’s how that would happen: If an employee is replaced while he or she is on paid family leave, that person could be virtually out of luck. Under this law, the employee has no right to sue or to take any other action against his/her employer. That worker is now out in the cold, out of a job!
Senator Lance and Governor Corzine are about to implement a law which will have a discriminatory impact upon small companies and their workers, while providing a glaring loophole which could tempt owners of small companies to persuade employees into not taking family leave, under the subtle threat of losing their job. If you own a small firm and cannot afford to keep a critical position unmanned, how would you handle the situation? Neither the small company owner, nor the employee should be put into this untenable position.
There’s more than one way to skin a cat, and I wonder if Lance went along with the inane provisions of this bill simply to get something – anything – through the New Jersey Senate.
1 comment:
You are so right. It is no longer Republican vs Democrat. It is now wealth beyond belief and pressing hardship. Are we driven to communes or having multiple wives. With power transferred to Washington, how much can people take before they break in the name of the Business Roundtable partners. Your blog triggered a downer. I think we need Gabriel Heater back, "There is good news tonight."
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