Skip to main content

Maryland's Paid Sick Leave Bill Heads to Governor's Desk


Last week, the Maryland General Assembly approved a bill that would require employers in the state with 15 or more full time employees to provide five days of paid sick leave to employees.  Businesses with less than 15 employees would be required to provide five unpaid sick and safe leave days.  Republican Governor Larry Hogan has dubbed the bill 'job killing' legislation and has stated he will veto it.  (As of this writing, the Governor has not taken any action on the bill).  

The Governor and some Republicans have argued that this bill will hurt small businesses and should not be so broad.  In fact, the Governor had pushed a competing proposal that would have changed the threshold and only required that employers with 50 or more employees to provide paid sick leave (rather than employers with 15 or more employees).  However, this plan would have provided tax incentives for smaller employers who offered paid sick leave to their employees.

Interesting to note that attempts to pass paid sick leave in Maryland have certainly been an uphill and protracted struggle that has stretched out over five years.  Prior paid sick leave legislation originally provided for seven days of paid sick leave (rather than the five days approved in this bill).  Those bills ultimately failed to gain the traction needed to become law.  However, with Democrats in control of the state legislature in Maryland, they were finally able to scrap together enough votes to approve this bill.  Of course, even if the Governor vetoes the bill (which is expected), Democrats have enough votes to override the veto.  However, given the legislature next convenes in January, that veto override could not happen until next year.  In essence, the Governor's veto of this bill will likely only stall the inevitable passage of this bill (assuming Democrats continue to vote in favor of the bill when the veto override vote next occurs).



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

NLRB: Discussion Among Employees About Tip Pooling is Protected Concerted Activity

  This Advice Memorandum from the National Labor Relations Board’s Associate General Counsel, Jayme Sophir, addressed whether employees which discussed and complained about tip pooling at work constituted protected concerted activity. In relevant part, an employer in New York operated a chain of steakhouses.  While tip pooling was in place at these steakhouses, some of the employees objected to it on the grounds that it was not transparent and improperly divided tips among the workers.  Employees were told not to complain or talk to each other about the tip pool and were told that doing so would endanger their jobs.  Despite the employer later attempting to provide some clarity as to how the tips were being divided, rancor still existed among some employees.  At one point, the employees were told by a general manager that some employees that had been talking about the tip pool were “cleared out” and the employer would continue to do so. In the Advice Memorandum, it was noted that emplo
Post a Comment
Read more

Happening Tomorrow: Connecticut’s Minimum Wage Increases

For those employers and employees alike in Connecticut, mark your calendars as tomorrow, the minimum wage rate increases in the state from $13/hour to $14/hour. This wage hike comes after Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont had signed Public Act 19-4 into law in 2019 which progressively raised the state’s hourly minimum wage rate every year for five years.  In fact, next year, the hourly wage rate will top out at $15/hour.  Beginning in January of 2024, the hourly wage rate will be indexed to the employment cost index. For additional information:   https://portal.ct.gov/Office-of-the-Governor/News/Press-Releases/2022/06-2022/Governor-Lamont-Reminds-Residents-That-Minimum-Wage-Is-Scheduled-To-Increase-on-Friday
Post a Comment
Read more

What I’ve Been Reading This Week

A few years ago, I remember when the “Fight for $15” movement was taking off around the country.  Lo and behold, it appears that a $15/hour minimum wage is not the stopping point, which should be no surprise.  As the below article notes, New York is aggressively moving to ramp up hourly wage rates even higher.  While all the  below articles are worth a read, I called particular attention to that one. As always, below are a couple article that caught my eye this week. Disney World Workers Reject Latest Contract Offer Late last week, it was announced that workers at Disney World had rejected the most recent contract offer from the company, calling on their employer to do better.  As Brooks Barnes at The New York Times writes, the unions that represent about 32,000 workers at Disney World reported their members resoundingly rejected the 5 year contract offer which would have seen workers receive a 10% raise and retroactive increased back pay.  While Disney’s offer would have increased pa
Post a Comment
Read more