LABOR COMMITTEE PLANS AFTERNOON HEARING ON BAD BILLS FOR BUSINESS

HARTFORD (March 5, 2015) Today the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) will be offering testimony in front of the Labor Committee in hopes to enlighten Connecticut lawmakers on just how detrimental their potential policies would be for the thousands of small business owners in Connecticut, many of which are members of NFIB.

 

“The committee is considering bills that are so egregious to small business owners it has left us wondering if this is a legislative attempt to wreak havoc on the very people that are the back bone of our economy in Connecticut” said NFIB Connecticut State Director Andrew Markowski. “The same lawmakers that campaigned on wanting to improve our economy are now going out of their way to attempt to destroy it.”

 

This afternoon, the legislature’s Labor Committee will be considering the following business-killing measures:

•Expanding the state’s paid sick leave mandate to include all businesses with 10 or more employees (House Bill 6784).

•Establishing a paid Family Medical Leave insurance program and dramatically expanding existing FMLA provisions to small businesses with 2 or more employees (House Bill 6932).

•“Ban the box” legislation prohibiting employers from inquiring about the criminal or arrest history of a job applicant (House Bill 6875).

•Increasing the minimum wage amount for tipped employees (Senate Bill 858).

Present at the Committee’s public hearing to advocate on small businesses behalf will be Andrew Markowski as well as small business owner Wendy Traub of Hemlock Directional Boring, Inc. Her business is located in Torrington and she will be testifying against both the paid sick leave bill and the FMLA bill on behalf of small business.