Paid sick leave bill passes committee

Private employers in New Mexico may no longer get to decide whether paid sick leave is a benefit they want to offer their workers.

A bill that would ensure employees in the state have access to paid time off when they’re sick cleared the Senate Tax, Business and Transportation Committee on a party-line 6-3 vote Sunday.

“Access to paid sick leave protects workplaces, families, and communities statewide,” read a tweet sent from Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s account minutes after the vote. “I appreciate so many key stakeholders being at the table for this important discussion and I look forward to signing this legislation when it gets to my desk.”

Known as the Healthy Workplaces Act, House Bill 20 would require private employers in the state to provide workers at least one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours they work, or 64 hours per year.

The bill, which doesn’t prohibit an employer from offering more generous benefits, includes misdemeanor and financial penalties for violations of the proposed law.

The bill, which passed the House of Representatives on a 36-33 vote Feb. 28, heads next to the full Senate.

A Senate committee on Tuesday revised it to include state and local government employees.

The measure has sparked opposition from business owners who say the mandate will not only be costly but comes on the heels of a public health crisis that has decimated their finances. Efforts to exempt smaller businesses from the proposed law have failed.

Terri Cole, president and CEO of the Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce, said her organization supports a statewide policy on mandatory sick leave “so long as it’s reasonable and accommodating to small employers.”

Bill Lee, a business owners and member of the Gallup-McKinley County Chamber of Commerce, said he’s experienced a year-over-year loss of more than 90 percent.

“While I thank the legislative bodies for their hard work and their help provided during the session,” he said, referring to several pandemic relief measures, “that aid is short term and the devastating effect of bills like HB 20 will go on in perpetuity.”

Bill McCamley, secretary of the New Mexico Department of Workforce Solutions, told lawmakers the governor would support the bill as long as its implementation is delayed by a year. He said the administration believes the year delay “not only helps the business community adjust” to the mandate but also would allow his department “to properly plan, train our workers to enforce it and also ask for additional support in next year’s budget.”

“If there are two things that the pandemic has revealed to us, it is the a) importance of our essential workers that are out there on the front lines every day ... but No. 2, it has also revealed how no one should have to go to work sick,” he said. “That’s really, really bad for the workers themselves, and it’s bad for all of us that are their friends and neighbors in the community that interact with them.”