Fight for paid family and medical leave notches early victory in its return to the Roundhouse

Yahoo

28-01-2025

State Rep. Jenifer Jones has examined paid family and medical leave from many angles.
As a mother to seven children, she saved up every hour of paid time off to be at home with her kids, the Deming Republican told members of the House Health and Human Services Committee on Monday.
As an oncology nurse, she witnessed what families faced as they searched for time to care for sick loved ones.
And as a wife and daughter-in-law, she took unpaid time off to care for her late husband and mother-in-law during their cancer treatments.
"I have the good fortune of seeing just about every side of this issue," Jones said. "I think many of us do; we're just people."
As lawmakers examined a renewed push toward a state program to provide workers with paid time off to address medical issues or care for family, the personal often blended with the political — for the bill's sponsors, spectators and committee members.
The proposal cleared its first hurdle Monday, following a 6-4, party-line committee vote in its favor.
However, opposition to the proposal remains strong, particularly among business owners concerned about how offering paid family and medical leave might affect their operations.
Even after considering the issue from several perspectives, Jones voted against sending it onward. "Our job is to create an environment where … businesses are thriving — not a heavy-handed government that will force them to do things they cannot do without closing," she said.
'Insurance' for workers and businesses
House Bill 11, sponsored by Rep. Christine Chandler, D-Los Alamos, would allow employees to receive a percentage of their wages while on leave from work to bond with a new child, care for an ailing family member, prepare for a spouse's military deployment or take action to protect themselves or a family member from certain types of violence, namely domestic abuse.
The bill's co-sponsor Rep. Linda Serrato, D-Santa Fe, described the proposed state-run family and medical leave program as a kind of "insurance" for businesses and their employees, so they're not relying on informal deals to cobble together time off.
In a lot of ways, Serrato said, her own experiences of taking time off to welcome a new child were privileged ones. She said she was lucky to work in positions that didn't require as much manual labor and to have a support system of family members to help.
'You hear these stories and say, 'Oh, we were so lucky,' " Serrato said in an interview Monday. "That's not fair to rely on luck to grow your workforce, and something like this will help our workforce overall.'
If passed, HB 11 would create a paid family and medical leave fund, administered by the state but funded by workers and employers with five or more employees. Workers would chip in the equivalent to 0.5% of their earnings, while employers would add in 0.4% of each eligible worker's wages.
The fund also would require some seed money from the state. HB 11's fiscal impact report shows the fund would require about $25 million in startup dollars for fiscal years 2026 and 2027. A line item in the earliest edition of the state's budget bill for fiscal year 2026 includes a $35 million appropriation for the Department of Workforce Solutions to implement the legislation.
Starting in January 2028, eligible workers would be able to take up to 12 weeks of leave while earning the state's minimum wage, plus two-thirds of their remaining salary. Payments would max out at the average wage of all occupations in New Mexico.
Call for more employer protections
The proposal for paid family and medical leave should sound familiar: The House voted to kill a similar proposal — by a margin of two votes — on the last full day of the 2024 legislative session.
This year's bill looks a little different from the 2024 proposal. Serrato noted the latest version tightens up some definitions to maintain consistency across state statute in addition to creating a ramp-up to 12 weeks of paid leave for all workers after the fund becomes solvent.
This year's Legislature looks different, too. Eleven Democrats joined their Republican colleagues in opposing the Paid Family and Medical Leave Act in 2024. Three of them lost reelection bids, with each of their rivals indicating support for a paid leave proposal — a change lawmakers have said could help get the measure across the finish line.
Though it cleared its first obstacle Monday, the bill will still face significant pushback from chambers of commerce and business officials, several of whom voiced concerns about the bill Monday.
Carol Wight, CEO of the New Mexico Restaurant Association, argued employees and employers should have the choice to opt into the program, rather than imposing a statewide requirement.
"Employees may not want to spend their money on something like this," Wight said in an interview Monday. "And why would we give them that choice? Because these legislators know better than they do what's good for them."
The bill is slated to go before the House Commerce and Economic Development Committee, then to the House floor — and Wight said she's prepared to keep fighting it along the way to ensure it includes protections for employers, not just employees.
"It's not a good bill. It's not finished, and it is very one-sided," she said. "So give us a chance to make some amendments that would make it a better bill, and then you won't have so many people that are against it."
Notably, not all business owners opposed HB 11 during the committee meeting Monday.
Deborah Condit, owner of the Albuquerque bookshop Books on the Bosque, was among those who spoke in support of it.
After running the numbers for her business and accounting for her 10 employees, Condit said it would cost her $32 a month — a sum she equated to selling one more book — to provide paid family and medical leave through the state program, a benefit she couldn't otherwise afford.
"If there's a way for me as a small business owner to be able to provide that, sign me up. I am right there," Condit said.