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Mandatory sick pay bill would hit employment like the flu |
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Thursday, 21 August 2008 |
The California Senate this week woke up and smelled the coffee where employee and employer relations are concerned.
And wide awake, the Senate voted down a wrong-headed bill intended to mandate 5 days of paid sick leave a year for small businesses and 9 days a year for large.
The bill, introduced in the Assembly by Fiona Wa, a Democrat from San Francisco, is a classic example of lawmakers out of touch with the reality of running a small business today.
Fueled by a survey that showed 88 percent of workers (voters) would favor paid sick leave, and more than likely aware that some 6 million California workers, including many state employees, do not enjoy the benefit of paid sick leave, Wa jumped to a conclusion.
She assumed that employers who don’t offer sick pay as a benefit could afford it, they just don’t want to do it.
Trained as a CPA and a former member of the White House Conference on Small Business under President Bill Clinton in 1995, Wa should have known better.
She should have known that small businesses confronted with government-imposed mandates affecting the employer-employee relationship have a proven response: They terminate the relationship.
The consensus is that passage of AB2716 would have eliminated 370,000 jobs in California. Certainly, after the layoffs, there would be a number of employees who would have opted for work over a forced benefit.
Government has a role in protecting the health, education and safety of its constituents. There are just some things that government can do, and we all hope they’ll be efficient in those matters.
But mandating the terms of employment is outside the venue of government, and the Senate’s vote kept it there.
Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the Mammoth Times Editorial Board. Signed editorials are the opinion of the authors.
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 28 August 2008 )
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