Lawmakers reject anti-business bills

(May 5, 2006) Just as important to the legislature’s overall success in 2006 as the pro-jobs initiatives that lawmakers passed was their rejection of many proposals that would have seriously harmed Connecticut’s business climate and economy.

Many anti-jobs measures originated in the Labor Committee, which seemed to ignore the fact that job creation and economic growth were the top priorities of the people of Connecticut, the business community, legislative leadership and the administration this year.

Fortunately, the committee’s most harmful measures were stopped by other legislative committees that recognized the damage the proposals would do to the state’s struggling economy.

Among the most burdensome measures were:

• SB-462, the “play or pay” health care tax on employers. It was stopped by the Finance Committee;
• HB-5030, the “captive audience” measure that would have blocked employers from talking to their employees about many issues at customary, mandatory staff meetings and denied employees their right to balanced information — a right confirmed by the National Labor Relations Board. It was stopped in the Judiciary Committee; and
• HB-5032, effectively a gag order on employers that required companies receiving state assistance to sign a neutrality agreement in union organizing campaigns. It was defeated by the Commerce Committee.
  

The Insurance Committee rejected another misguided and costly Labor Committee measure that would have given some employees in Connecticut the responsibility for writing company ergonomics policies and investigating fellow workers’ complaints (HB-5740).

While debate over these issues harmed the state’s image as a place in which to do business and create jobs, lawmakers were able to stop the proposals early in the session. Still, these proposals seem to be perennial efforts by the Labor Committee.

Outsourcing

An “anti-sourcing” bill (HB-5279) restricting the ability of companies contracting with the state to perform the work in the most cost-efficient means possible was defeated at session’s end in great part through the help of Senate Republicans.

Workers’ compensation

Another target of the Labor Committee was a package of reforms enacted by the General Assembly in the early 1990s that tamed Connecticut’s out-of-control workers’ comp system and help stopped a damaging exodus of jobs from the state.

Even though the reforms have worked and made the system fairer, more efficient and less costly — with Connecticut’s benefits still among the most generous in the nation — the committee has annually tried to undo them.

Fortunately, legislators rejected numerous attempts to turn back the workers’ comp reforms or otherwise increase system costs.

However, lawmakers this year did repeal one reform, the Social Security offset, which will cost Connecticut employers $8 million in the first year alone. The bill, SB-25, allows workers’ comp claimants to collect full Social Security and workers’ comp benefits at the same time.

The repeal was unfortunate, but also an effort to conform Connecticut with federal law, which was changed after the offset reform was enacted here.

R&D tax credit

One of Connecticut’s leading competitive advantages was at risk under a bill (SB-669) that would have weakened the desirability of conducting research and development in the state. Recognizing the danger to the state’s burgeoning R&D industry, the Finance Committee asked that the bill be recommitted to the committee at the end of the session, effectively stopping the proposal.