Skip to main content

One to Keep An Eye On: HB 222 (Texas)


As with many employment and labor law related cases (and bills) being litigated around the country, there are always a few that stand out.  This is one to keep an eye on.


Following a lawsuit filed earlier this year on the matter, on Monday, Texas Republican Representative Matt Krause introduced HB 222 in the Texas House of Representatives.  That bill would prohibit cities in the state from passing ordinances, such as the paid sick leave ordinance approved by the Austin City Council earlier this year.  If readers recall, Austin approved a paid sick leave ordinance that required private employers in the city with more than 15 workers to provide at most 8 days of paid sick leave per year for its full time employees.  For private employers in the city with less than 15 employees, the ordinance required that these employers provide at most 6 days of paid sick leave per year.  San Antonio followed suit this past summer with a similar law while Dallas has reportedly been going back and forth on the idea.

For those keeping track at home, many progressives hailed Austin’s paid leave ordinance as a gigantic step forward, especially given the state’s reluctance to approve a statewide paid sick leave measure.  (Austin is a traditionally Democratic city in a ‘red’ state).  In a solidly (well maybe not as solid after the 2018 Senate race between Democrat Beto O’Rourke and Republican Ted Cruz) Republican controlled state, some in the Texas Legislature made it no secret that they would seek to introduce legislation to overturn Austin’s ordinance.  One of those Representatives, Paul Workman from Austin, was defeated in last week’s midterm elections.  Critics of Republican efforts to overturn the ordinance pointed to Workman’s defeat as evidence that voters had no appetite for the Texas Legislature jumping into the fray.  Nevertheless, Representative Krause appears ready and willing to pick up the slack with his introduction of HB 222.

With a state Legislature controlled by Republicans, I would expect that HB 222 will find the votes to pass.  The question then turns to what paid sick leave advocates will do next.  With no realistic avenue to getting a referendum on the ballot or finding the votes in the Texas Legislature to support a statewide measure, perhaps the next/only option is to turn attention to having the U.S. Congress approve a nationwide paid sick leave bill.  There appears to be some interest among Republicans for passing a paid family leave bill...perhaps additional support can also be garnered for a paid sick leave bill?  With an incoming Congress in January comprised of a Democratic House and a Republican Senate, maybe a bipartisan bill can find enough votes to pass.

Stay tuned.


For additional information:  https://www.statesman.com/news/20181112/bill-filed-monday-would-scrap-austins-paid-sick-leave-ordinance

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

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

Utah Non-Compete Bill Falters in House

Last month, a non-compete bill sponsored by Representative Brian Greene (Republican from Pleasant Grove) & up for vote in the Utah House failed to make it through the Legislature.  The bill sought to ban enforcement of non-competes if they came after a worker was already employed, given no compensation (such as a bonus or promotion) for signing the non-compete, and laid off within six months.  However, by a 22 - 49 vote, the bill was resoundingly defeated after some business groups lobbied to kill the non-compete bill.  One group in particular, The Free Enterprise Utah coalition, argued that the Utah State Legislature should hold off on any changes to non compete laws in the state until a survey about non competes was done among Utah businesses.  Representative Greene had countered this claim and argued that a survey was not needed to show that the current non compete laws in the states allowed many businesses, including some small high tech companies in the state, to per
Post a Comment
Read more