NFIB Vermont Letter of Opposition to Paid Leave Bill (House Bill 187, Senate Bill 15)

                                                                         February
19, 2014

RE: Legislative Impact on Small Business – H.187
(S.15)

Dear
Representative Head:

On
behalf of NFIB/VT’s members, I’d like to make clear our opposition to H.187
(and S.15), mandated paid leave. 

NFIB/VT
opposes these mandated policies because they interfere with the
employer/employee relationship and eliminates flexibility that most small
businesses and their employees prefer to have given the multitude of issues
that people encounter in their lives.  We
urge the legislature to contemplate the full impacts of its entire legislative
agenda on small businesses and those workers who are employed by them.

Some legislators have incorrectly assumed that employers are not
working with their employees to let them take the time off they need to balance
their career and family.

The expense of this mandate will strain small businesses, and impede
growth and the ability for a business to add jobs in this high cost state’s
increasingly anti-business climate. Administrative costs will be burdensome,
especially for tracking seasonal employees from year to year.

Without
a vibrant economy – a healthy/solvent small business sector; policymaker will
no longer be able to meet the high expectations that they have set for
Vermonters.  These policies continue to
draw the lifeblood from those who can least afford to pay.

NFIB/VT
believes the Vermont General Assembly is sending the wrong message to our state’s
small businesses and we urge you to put to rest H.187 (S.15), mandated paid
leave legislation.

Sincerely,

Shawn
Shouldice