Paid family leave act clears state Senate
The state Senate today gave final legislative approval to a bill to allow workers to take paid leaves of absence to care for family members, voting 21-15 in favor despite the objections of opponents who said it will hurt the state’s economy and make New Jersey less competitive.
The paid family leave act (A873) would allow workers to apply for up to six weeks off to care for a newborn or newly adopted child, or a sick parent, spouse or child, and collect up to two-thirds of their pay, up to a maximum of $524 a week. The benefit would be funded by an average worker contribution of about $33 a year, levied through a mandatory employee payroll tax.
However, the bill would not require small employers to grant a leave of absence or keep a job open with a guaranteed right to reinstatement.
In fact, on its way through the Legislature, the bill was substantively re-written to offer broader legal protection for business owners with fewer than 50 employees. It now gives small-business owners the right to fire and replace an employee who takes family leave if the company says it cannot operate without a key position filled.
What’s certain is that the law wll require a learning curve for small business. It will require additional posting, notice, and reporting procedures. Will it be a hassle? You bet. Will it impose a new legal burden? Not really. Although for small businesses who think that they are immune to workplace regulations, mistakes could be costly.
April 13th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
I think this is a very interesting bill to be put in to effect. This leave act will allow workers to apply for up to six weeks off to take care of a newborn or newly adopted child, or a sick parent, spouse or child. Employees could collect up to two-thirds of their pay, to a maximum of $524 a week. While this is great for companies larger than 50 or more employees, smaller employers are not required to guarantee jobs to workers who take the leave. I suspect there will be some sort of trial or learning period for companies to get used to and fully understand the rules. What happens if someone just ‘requests’ the time off, and then decides not to take it when they realize their job cannot be held? I have a feeling there may be a company than ends up letting that person go and there may be some backlash against this bill, but push comes to shove New Jersey is at at-will employment state and there really doesn’t need to be a reason for a person being terminated.
I am also curious to learn what regulation if any are in place for workers to take leave, but live in another state; or vice versa, an employee who works in another state, but lives in New Jersey. Will they be allowed to collect the benefit of this act? I also read that employers can make workers take any sick or vacation time they have remaining before getting their paid leave. This could possibly force some companies to make or reorganize their formal policies regarding time off.
Nonetheless, it will be very interesting to see the effects of this bill in time and what new and exciting legal precedents it will set.
April 14th, 2008 at 10:33 am
This bill allows the employee to take 6 weeks of paid leave to care for family issues
which if not abused will be great for employee’s as well as employers. If one of your employee’s experiences a family issue at sometime during their employment, this bill will at the very least relax a portion of the stress they may have by knowing that they can get paid during this period of time. Having a employee not performing at their best because of a family issue only hurts the company.
The funding of this appears to be made through employee contributions so except for the loss of the employee for the maxium of 6 weeks , the employer has no out of pocket expenses. Employee’s of larger companies are guareented job reinstatement under the terms of FLMA and the NJFLA, but neither of these acts provide for paid leave. The employer is losing that employee anyway so it should not be a major issue in terms of timeoff to the employer.
Not being an expert by any means on this subject , it would appear to me that the passing of this bill will cause some interpetation issues at the begining and but I don’t believe many legal issues will arise.
The bill only affects companies with 50 or more employees,as does FLMA and NJFLA, so the small businesses still have the ability to deny the request or terminate the employee under the terms of “At Will” employment because of their size. If I’m reading the bill correctly , companies of 50 or more would need to show that granting the leave would cause hardship to the business before denying it.
April 14th, 2008 at 11:03 am
I agree that this a very interesting bill and I think it’s very exciting that it’s going to be signed into law. Like any new bill, there will of course be some backlash but I don’t see paid leave causing many new and additional legal implications for businesses, nor do I believe that the cost of doing business in NJ will substantially increase due to the fact that the bulk of the cost will be carried by employees. Furthermore, with employees being able to take time away from work to care for themselves or family members without as heavy of a financial burden, I believe we will see employee morale and wellness improve over the long run which could outweigh the costs.
However, as mentioned in the article, small businesses should continue to be careful when deciding whether or not to terminate an employee. Because the bill doesn’t require these employers to keep jobs for employees on leave or to grants leaves at all, they may at times forget that they are not immune to the exceptions of at-will employment.
April 14th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
From an employee’s perspective at a large organization, I am very appreciative of this law. God-forbid, if one of my family members got sick, I’d be thankful that I’d be able to take time off of work to care for them for.
However, from an employer’s point of view, I am a little leery about this law. Since small businesses are not affected as much as large businesses, I can’t help but think of the burden that smaller companies might feel. The law doesn’t mandate companies with less than 50 employees to offer leave of absence, and it makes sense why. If a critical position is left unoccupied for a while and work is not being done, it could create quite a hardship for the company. Could such a bill cause employees in smaller firms to be upset? For example, would a job applicant who had to choose between two jobs, opt for a larger company just because of the perks and other healthcare benefits of working with a large company?
And in addition to the Laura’s comment above, I also thought about the termination aspect for employees in small companies. Being terminated in a small company because of taking FLMA leave (and not in regards to discriminative or other actions) would be absolutely justifiable when this bill is enacted.. This further makes me wonder if the morale of employees in smaller companies might become a bit of resentment. And as studies have shown, more women tend to be caregivers than men. Would this further affect the ‘glass-ceiling’ issue? In essence, will care-giving responsibilities prevent those in small firms from advancing up the corporate ladder if their jobs are jeopardized because of family responsibilities?
April 14th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
The paid Family Leave Act of NJ is just another burden on businesses. In a state that is already struggling with high taxes and businesses leaving the state, introducing additional burdens on them will not improve the situation. Why must the government come up with solutions to all of our problems? We are slowly but surely turning in to a “nanny” state. It sounds like a great idea to allow employees to take care with pay of a newborn, sick parent, spouse, child and so on, but there is always another side to every issue. This is another government run mandate that will increase in cost over time, reduce productivity and overall reduce NJ businesses competitiveness. And then there is all the fraud, abuse and legal actions this will bring with it.
Is becoming a parent or having a sick parent or child something new that just surfaced during the recent decade? How did this State and county manage all this time without these mandates? What has happened to individual responsibility? It used to be that if you needed or wanted something, you figured out on your own how to accomplish it. Today we seem to need a new government run program for what ever issue is bothering us.
April 15th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
The current state of our economy is the direct result of lack of personal resposibility. The salespeople who sold mortgages to folks they knew could not make the payments when interest went up and the borrowers who had no plan B if interest rates did go up. And come on, who thought interest rates would not go up?
When we taught personal reposibility people did not buy things they could not afford and sales people who did not give you the straight story were called con men. Buyers were capable of figuring out whether or not they could afford something so that no conman, whether selling aluminum siding, mortgages or annuities, was going to pull the wool over their eyes. Sales people that behaved as these lenders did would have been tarred and feathered and run out of town. But that won’t happen because there was no law against it. Morality doesn’t figure into the equation because the only recourse an individual has is the law. If I punched someone in the nose because they defrauded me, I’d go to jail.
If you are wondering what the heck any of this has to do with paid family leave you may be missing the point. Government cannot solve social problems by saving us from ourselves. These programs inevitably make people weaker and more dependant when what people really need is to learn how to be self sufficient and strong.
Being personally responsible for your actions means doing things like maintaining a savings account in case someone in the family would get sick and not be able to work for a time. It was called saving for a rainy day.
The end result of entitlement programs is not self sufficiency it is dependence and higher taxes. The false promise that the meager sum collected from employees is going to fund this program once it becomes an expected benefit is a naive as thinking what you pay into social security is going to cover what you will expect to take out.
Those who say there is no cost to business other than the required learning curve are either being fooled or trying to fool others. There will be consequences in terms of added business expense for training and enforcement and reporting for businesses small and large. Anyone who thinks not has never looked at the budget for a human resourses department and is probably too young to remember when there was no such thing.
This is not what state government should be doing and it doesn’t really help anyone who is not trying to get elected!
April 28th, 2008 at 10:07 am
On April 7, 2008, the New Jersey Senate passed a bill that amends the State’s existing temporary disability benefits law to provide eligible employees up to six weeks of family leave benefits to care for sick family members or a newborn or newly adopted child. In terms of job protection, the bill states that for employers who are not covered under the NJFLA, like those that employ fewer than 50 employees, the failure or refusal to restore an employee to employment following paid family leave will not be a wrongful discharge in violation of a clear mandate of public policy.
Furthermore, an employee of such an employer will not have a cause of action against the employer, where it can be misunderstood as a civil wrong recognized by law as grounds for a lawsuit, or for breach of an implied provision of employment, or under common law, for refusing or failing to restore the employee to employment. Starting January 1, 2009, benefits for this new law will be funded through new employee payroll taxes - estimated by the legislative sponsors of the Paid Family Leave Law at $33 annually per employee. Though employers will not be required to fund the paid leave benefits, it is expected that employers will incur significant administrative costs. Some state legislators have argued that businesses and employers will be discouraged from doing business in New Jersey.
In today’s society, it’s the norm for both parents to be working, elderly parents are in assisted living homes that are costly and children are in care programs from early morning to late evening. Working parents will sponsor this legislation because they will understand the urgency of this type of leave for working families. At some point in time there will be a situation when this leave will be needed and just knowing that is available will be a small measure of comfort. I think certain requirements will have to be made so that leave requests are not abused by employees and employers will have to monitor and evaluate all leave requests to make sure that they are warranted.