Government Affairs REPORT

Despite calls for boosting economy:
Anti-business proposals getting Labor Committee push

(Feb. 24, 2006) Job creation and economic growth are the top priorities of the people of Connecticut, the business community, legislative leadership and the administration, but the Labor Committee is going in a different direction, offering several bills that could adversely affect the state’s economy and business climate.

CBIA believes that every piece of legislation this year should be evaluated on whether it will help or hurt Connecticut’s ability to enhance the business climate and increase opportunities for economic development.

But among the committee’s proposals are those:

• Restricting employers’ ability to communicate with their employees — the “captive audiences” proposal,
• Eliminating employees’ right to privacy in union-organizing campaigns — the “card-check” proposal,
• Creating a new health care tax on employers – the “pay or play” proposal, and
• Allowing employees to stockpile and literally cash in unused vacation days.
  

The 2006 General Assembly began with the political consensus — and public expectation — that policy-makers had to dramatically improve the state’s prospects for job creation and economic growth.

Individually and collectively, however, the Labor Committee proposals send the opposite message — that Connecticut is unfriendly to businesses and that it has interests other than economic development and job creation.

Here’s a brief look at the proposals:
Captive audiences (HB-5030): Many businesses speak frequently with their employees at mandatory staff meetings to keep them abreast of key workplace and industry issues, but the committee’s “captive audience” proposal would stop employers from talking with their employees at those meetings.
Banned topics include developments at the state Capitol on issues affecting their jobs and workplace, government contracts, aspects of their health benefit plans, and other key business subjects.
Had it been enacted last year, the measure would have scuttled the “Save Our SubBase” campaign.

“Card-check” proposal: SB-21 requires employers receiving state funds to permit union organizers to distribute labor organization authorization cards on the employer’s premises and recognize a union if it can demonstrate it gained majority support.

Pre-empted by the federal National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), the proposal, among other things, tramples on employers’ rights and denies employees their right to vote in a secret ballot election supervised by the National Labor Relations Board.
In an election unsupervised by the NLRB, employees would have no protection against the inappropriate pressuring of card signers by organized labor, and workers would be forced to make a decision without a full explanation of the purpose of the cards.

“Pay or play” health care tax: This would require employers to pay for employee health insurance through a state-run pool if they’re not currently providing coverage that meets standards set by the legislature.

Employers and employees alike are struggling to afford health benefits. But the “pay or play” proposals do nothing to reduce costs or make insurance more accessible.

“Any state that imposes a serious employer mandate would soon find itself at a competitive disadvantage in attracting and retaining jobs,” said the Washington Post.

Retention of vacation days: HB-5036, approved by the committee this week, requires employees’ paid vacation time to be treated as “wages” — allowing employees to accumulate and eventually “cash out” unused time. It violates the purpose of paid vacation time, which is to provide a respite from work so that the employee can refresh themselves. And it restricts the employer’s ability to create a compensation package that they consider appropriate and competitive.

If an employee can view accrued vacation time as a form of savings account, knowing that their employer must pay that time as wages at some point in the future, it can dissuade some employees from using their vacation time for its intended purpose.

Another bill, SB-24, repeals a key workers’ compensation reform by allowing employers to be sued for negligence for employee deaths that arise out of and in the course of employment, in addition to meeting their obligations for workers’ comp benefits.

Measures such as these distract from the job at hand — restoring the state’s economy.

And there is much work to do to. Just as legislators have made bipartisan calls to improve the economy, CBIA encourages them to make a bipartisan push to reject proposals that would only set the state’s economy back.

For more information about the Labor Committee proposals, contact CBIA’s Bonnie Stewart at stewartb@cbia.com or 860-244-1900.