Family leave legislation passed the Senate March 14. But having made it out of House Appropriation Committee March 31 as title-only bill, it's far from a done deal, as Ralph Thomas reports in the Seattle Times.
That's good. Along with other business groups and several editorial pages (for example, here and here), AWB believes this is a jobkiller.
Rachel La Corte of AP writes on the bill in a weekend story. In it, AWB member Judy Coovert opposes the mandate.
"There is a desperate need for balance between people's work lives and their family lives," said Coovert, co-owner of the company that manufactures and distributes printing and corporate marketing material. "We've done that ourselves and achieved that balance. We've done that without government mandate."
Don Brunell makes a similar point in the article.
"We believe that employers have the responsibility to provide that kind of leave to their folks and have good benefits, period," said Don Brunell, president of the Association of Washington Business. "But we don't encourage them to rely upon state programs."
A look at the bill's fiscal note shows that the bureaucracy claims more than 40 percent of the program budget in the first biennium in which the legislation would take effect. Among the expenses: $600 task chairs for the 83 new employees required at L&I. Nice.
