Skip to main content

The Twin State Voluntary Leave Plan Proposed By Vermont & New Hampshire Governors


Last Wednesday, New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu and Vermont Governor Phil Scott held a joint press conference in which they unveiled their "Twin State Voluntary Leave Plan".  This proposal would provide voluntary paid family and medical leave to workers in both states.  Under the proposal, enrolled public and private sector employees in New Hampshire and Vermont would be eligible for 60% wage replacement for six weeks at competitive rates for qualifying events.  What would count as a qualifying event under this plan you ask?  The birth of a child, the adoption of a child, the fostering of a child, a serious health condition that makes the employee unable to perform essential functions of his/her job, an urgent situation involving a close relative that is an active duty member of the military, or the need to care for a close relative that faces a serious health program would all qualify.

This inevitably then leads to the question of "Ok, how are you going to pay for it?"  Under the Twin State Voluntary Leave Plan, New Hampshire and Vermont would select an insurance carrier (or carriers) through a coordinated request for proposal process to assume the risk and manage the benefit and claims under the plan.  The insurer/s would then develop a state rate.  (The state rate would be the per employee cost that each state would pay to provide a Family Medical Leave Insurance plan to its employees.  Under this proposal, each state would provide the paid leave to its  approximately 18,000 public employees in New Hampshire and Vermont as a new benefit.  It is expected that it would cost Vermont about $2.5 million per year.  Costs for public employees in New Hampshire are not readily available at this time.)  For private employers, depending on the number of employees they have the the level of participation among employees in The Twin State Voluntary Leave Plan, insurance rates would vary.

For those wondering, while both Governors of New Hampshire and Vermont are Republicans, Democrats control both state legislatures.  Democrats in both states were quick to criticize the Twin State Voluntary Leave Plan after it was announced, calling it a "PR stunt" and "useless".  It is notable that both Governors vetoed paid leave programs within the past year, although those bills were vetoed in part because they included a small income tax (to pay for the leave) and included mandatory individual participation, which Republicans in both states opposed.  Whether this proposal will gain traction in either state remains a bit of a mystery.  I would not be surprised if one (or both states) ended up creating a different bi-partisan proposal instead, with enough support among Republicans and Democrats to gain traction and become law.


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