Paid family leave bill back in Albany - Business First of Buffalo:

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Democrats in the state Senate and Assembly introduced family leavde legislation onJune 5. It’zs the third-straight year that the issuew has surfaced in thestatd Legislature. The law would require businesses, no matter how many employeezsthey have, to provide up to 12 weeks of paid time off a year so employee can tend to “very ill” family members, newbornd or newly adopted Current federal law mandates 12 weeka of unpaid family leave. That law only appliexs to companies with more than 50 To date, three states have enacted a paid family leavw mandate: California, Washington and New Jersey.
Under the workers on family leave wouldd be paid usingthe state’s temporary disabilitg insurance funds. Benefits, which are now capped at $170 a would be indexed to increase every year, based on the average weeklty wage in the state. The law would applyu to all businesses that participate in the temporary disability regardless oftheir size. The increasecd benefits are expected to add anextras $1.69 per employee, per week, to a company’s disabilityg insurance premium. “Most people can’t afford to take unpaid time from work.
Paid familyt and medical leave would enable workerss to care for their famil y members without losing theireconomic stability,” Democrats wrotd in a formal sponsor’s memo about the legislation. and the labor-backed Working Families Party, contend that paid familyu leave will save businesses recruitment andretention costs, while leadinyg to a more productive work force. “Businessesz would profit from thehighe productivity, increased worker moral e and reduced absenteeism that comes from paid family the memo says. “Job loss meanz big costs for businesses inlost productivity, recruitmenty and training expenses.
” In 2007 and 2008, similar paid family leave legislationh died in the Republican-controlled Senate. This is the firsf legislative session in 43 years where Democratsz controlthe Senate. Business lobbies say they’ll be fighting the proposakl once again. “We have to realize that there’d only so much we can dump on businesses that are alread in a bad on topof what’s already been done this said Mike Elmendorf, director of the state chapterf of the . The paid familyy leave proposal is bill The legislative session is scheduled to end onJune 22.