EDITORIAL: Kill the FAMLI Leave proposal
Among
the radical maneuvers to make Colorado more Cali than California,
legislative Democrats are rushing a bill they call the “FAMLI Medical
Leave Insurance Program.”
They
are so committed to passing Senate Bill 188 they moved it through a
committee during the deadly bomb cyclone that caused Democratic Gov.
Jared Polis to close state government. It heads to the Senate Finance
Committee on Tuesday.
The
bill, so-sponsored by Colorado Springs Democratic Sen. Pete Lee, would
establish the family and medical leave insurance program, simply called
FAMLI. It would create a division of family and medical leave insurance
in the Department of Labor and Employment. The insurance pool would
provide “partial wage replacement benefits to an eligible individual who
takes leave from work.”
The
new “division” would be a state “enterprise.” Sponsors hope semantic
“enterprise” trick allows them to fund the program with compulsory
charges to employers and deductions from employee wages. Because it is
an “enterprise,” the bill calls the payroll and employer taxes “fees.”
They hope that will circumvent the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights requirement
that voters approve new taxes. Never mind the fact “fees” are, by
definition, paid voluntarily by people purchasing services.
Compassionate
people care about families and favor medical leave programs to help
employees care for newborns or tend to relatives who have taken ill and
need care. The federal Family Medical Leave Act protects jobs of
employees who leave for those reasons, and many employers have programs
to continue wages for employees on leave.
The concept of family leave is good.
This
bill takes a well-meaning philosophy and turns it into a liability for
employers and employees that goes too far and is rife for abuse. No
other state in the union has anything like the program proposed by SB
188.
The bill defines “family
member” as any employee’s immediate relative or domestic partner. No
problem there. Then it goes a giant step further, including as a family
member “any other individual with whom the covered individual has a
significant personal bond…”
Qualifying
conditions suffered by “any other individual” include anything relating
to active duty military service or an impending call to active duty
service. If an employee’s friend faces impending deployment, he or she
may take at least 12 weeks of paid leave to assist with anything ranging
from, and not limited to, “attending counseling, attending military
events or ceremonies, spending time with the military member during a
rest or recuperation leave,” etc.
The
bill goes on to describe any employee taking leave to help any other
person, military or otherwise, with circumstances including, and not
limited to, “domestic abuse, sexual assault or abuse,” “stalking,” any
“threatened act of stalking,” and any medical or mental condition.
In
other words, everyone qualifies for 12 weeks of paid medical leave to
assist or merely be with nearly anyone for any reason conceivable.
Everyone knows someone who fits any of the listed conditions or the “not
limited to” events limited only by imagination.
Proposed
amendments fall short of seriously limiting qualifying individuals and
events, because sponsors want this to appear as a gift to every person
remotely linked to common human disruptions large and small.
It
gets worse. To qualify for 12 weeks of helping almost anyone with any
challenge one can imagine, an employee need work only 680 hours —
anywhere. The hours transfer, so someone who works 680 hours and quits
can immediately leave the next job for 12 weeks to help a neighbor cope
with a “threatened act of stalking” or some other trauma.
Imagine
finding temporary replacements for “FAMLI Leave” employees in a labor
market heavy in jobs requiring security clearances, enduring a major
nursing shortage, and an unemployment rate of 2.8 percent.
“Any
business contemplating coming to Colorado Springs, or anywhere in
Colorado, will have to factor in how this would seriously affect their
overhead and the stability of their workforce,” said Rachel Beck,
government affairs director for the Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce
and Economic Development Commission.
The
bill ruins a pro-family concept by converting it to another
unsustainable socialistic utopian program, at an unfair cost to
employers and workers that jeopardizes our economy. The finance
committee should protect our state by killing this bill Tuesday. Start
over with something less extreme that makes sense for Colorado. The
Gazette Editorial Board
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