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Killing California’s Employers Off, One Paid Leave At A Time
Katy Grimes: Once upon a time, employment laws used to be about the employer need and purpose, as well as ensuring the decent and humane treatment of the employee. Today employment law surrounds the needs and purpose of the employee only, and at the expense of the private sector employers. With that introduction, California employers are facing another employer paid leave of absence mandate from the legislature. But the question still stands in the minds of most private employers: Should employers be required to pay for employee time off for vacations, sick leave, when they have babies or want to bond with the baby, to take care of a family member, for drug or alcohol rehabilitation, or to donate bone marrow or an organ? SB 1304 authored by Senator Mark DeSaulnier, D-Palo Alto, is another such leave program which would require private employers to allow employees to take paid leaves of absence for organ and bone marrow donation, and then restore the employee returning from leave to the same position or an equivalent position. The bill would prohibit a private employer from interfering with an employee taking organ donation leave or retaliating against an employee for taking that leave. The bill would also create a private right of action for an aggrieved employee to seek enforcement of the paid leave law. Currently, under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and the California Family Rights Act (CFRA), eligible employees to take up to a total of twelve (18) weeks, per calendar year, of paid or unpaid job-protected leave, as well as California Paid Family Leave, run by the state disability department. While an employee is on approved FMLA/CFRA or Paid Family Leave, the employee’s health, dental and vision benefits are maintained by the employer. Existing law already requires that state employees be permitted to take a leave of absence with pay, not exceeding 30 days for the purpose of organ donation. Opponents of the time-off for organ donation bill argue that adding another employer mandate to the private sector is not only a job and business killer, it is not the role of government. California businesses are closing, moving and filing bankruptcy are record numbers. Requiring another form of employer-paid leave could tip many businesses over the edge of the cliff. Business owners and small employers report they usually operate with very thin margins and do not have overlapping job descriptions for employees. When a private sector employee takes time off, there is no one to fill in. More likely, employees in the struggling private sector are performing the job functions of two or more jobs, just to keep the business afloat. Opposing the bill are the California Chamber of Commerce, National Federation of Business, California Employment Law Council and even the Department of Industrial Relations, together with contractor and grocer employer groups. Supporting the bill are many of the state’s labor unions including the SEIU, California Nurses Association, California State Employees Association (CSEA) and the CSEA for retirees, California State University Employees Union, as well as several attorney associations including the California Employment Lawyers Association, and Consumer Attorneys of California. The bill passed the Assembly Labor and Employment committee Wednesday and is headed for the Judiciary committee.
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May 21, 2012
Oh boo hoo hoo – Employers have it so very rough in the Golden State. They hardly make any money here at all and are leaving the state en masse! Or so it goes if you believe the above referenced writer.
Chew on this – For every federal law that is tilted in favor of the employer -every privacy invading drug screen; every deadbeat employer who bounces a paycheck; every employer who would be just as happy chaining employees to a desk in a dark room without HVAC, the reality of the situation is that the State of California tilts the ground back to a **balanced** position. Labor Employment law does not just exist simply to prohibit employers from using employees as slave labor; It exists to keep in check the relationship between workers and the corporations that would otherwise require 18 hour days and pay pennies holding everyone hostage who has to work for a living to their master/slave mentality.
BTW – where is the evidence of industry leaving en masse because having to accommodate FMLA and/or the **proposed** law for time off to save the life of another human being is so burdensome? The writer would have been ten thousand times more credible if she provided solid ::PROOF:: that the claims she has made is even a tiny little bit accurate.
Facts are best. Not hysterical speculations, Ms. Grimes.
How about 12.4% unemployment here compared to 9.7% nationally? California is toxic for jobs.
Calif State assembly doing nothing to prevent $3,000,000 of waste. Yale accomplishing what UC Berkeley is paying $3,000,000 for at no cost! A legacy of waste in UC Berkeley Chancellor’s Office: easily grasped by the public, lost on University of California’s President Yudof.
The UC Berkley budget gap has grown to $150 million, & still the Chancellor is spending money that isn’t there on $3,000,000 consultants. His reasons range from the need for impartiality to requiring the consultants “thinking, expertise, & new knowledge”.
Does this mean that the faculty & management of UC Berkeley – flagship campus of the greatest public system of higher education in the world – lack the knowledge, integrity, impartiality, innovation, skills to come up with solutions? Have they been fudging their research for years?
The consultants will glean their recommendations from faculty interviews & the senior management that hired them; yet $ 150 million of inefficiencies and solutions could be found internally if the Chancellor & Provost Breslauer were doing the work of their jobs (This simple point is lost on UC’s leadership).
The victims of this folly are Faculty and Students. $ 3 million consultant fees would be far better spent on students & faculty.
There can be only one conclusion as to why inefficiencies & solutions have not been forthcoming from faculty & staff: Chancellor Birgeneau has lost credibility & the trust of the faculty & Academic Senate leadership (C. Kutz, F. Doyle). Even if the faculty agrees with the consultants’ recommendations – disagreeing might put their jobs in jeopardy – the underlying problem of lost credibility & trust will remain. (Context: greatest recession in modern times)
Contact your representatives in Sacramento: tell them of the hefty self-serving $’s being spent by UC Berkeley Chancellor Birgeneau & Provost Breslauer.
Let there be light