Several harmful bills failed to pass.
What the End of Session Means for Small Business
The Massachusetts Legislature adjourned at the end of July, and this legislative session brought consideration of a variety of bills that would impact small business owners. Here’s a look at where four of them stand.
Paid Family and Medical Leave: Stalled in House
This bill would have required employers to pay workers a percentage of their salary, up to $1,000 per week, for up to 26 weeks of leave for their own illness or for up to 16 weeks to care for a family member. While the Senate did pass the bill, the House refused to take up the proposal in the final hours of the session. The paid leave proposal did not become law in the 2015-16 legislative session. This is a huge relief for small business owners, who cannot afford this new mandated cost.
Equal Pay: Passed and Signed into Law by Governor
The law requires employers pay men and women equally for comparable work. It outlines several legitimate reasons for pay differentials, including experience, education, geographic location, training, seniority, or a system based on sales. Employers would not be able to ask for a salary history from job candidates, and workers would be able to discuss their wages with other workers without retribution. Employers will also be allowed to perform self-evaluations of their payroll, and this procedure, paired with evidence of an effort to eliminate gender-based pay disparities, will protect them from financial liabilities in wage discrimination lawsuits.
Noncompete Agreement Restrictions: No Agreement In Conference Committee
The House and Senate each passed their own version of a bill limiting the use of noncompete agreements, but a joint committee of negotiators was not able to finalize one version prior to the deadline. Both versions prohibited the use of noncompetes for students, interns, under-18 workers, hourly workers, and employees who are fired or laid off.
The Senate bill would also have banned noncompetes for employees whose average weekly earnings are less than twice the state average (roughly $130,000 per year or less). While the House bill would allow noncompete agreements in effect for up to a year, the Senate bill would restrict them to three months and would also require a business to pay employees their full salary or a mutually agreed-upon payment (such as stock options) during the restricted period. The House bill would require payment of half the employee’s salary or a mutually agreed-upon payment.
Renewable Energy: Sent to the Governor for his Approval
Competing House and Senate bills that sought to diversify the state’s energy use—by requiring usage of offshore wind power and hydro energy sources—were reconciled and approved in the final hours of the session. NFIB/MA and the Retailers Association of Massachusetts joined together to speak out about the impact of the energy legislation on small businesses. In a letter to the conferees, they wrote that the bills would direct the procurement of 30 to 40 percent of the energy load in Massachusetts, while replacing relatively inexpensive energy sources with more expensive ones. Since the prices of renewable energy are higher, increased reliance on renewable energy sources will result in higher energy prices for residents and businesses. While renewable energy is an important goal, affordable cleaner energy is also critical.
Additionally, several bills that would have made running a business more difficult — a bill that would have made employers liable for wage violations at a firm they’ve worked with, a bill restricting the use of credit reports in the hiring process, and a bill that would have made collecting debt more difficult – did not pass. The legislature added to the cost of basic health insurance by overriding Governor Baker’s veto of a mandate that all basic health insurance policies include controversial long-term antibiotic therapy for Lyme disease. The Governor had suggested (and NFIB supported) compromise legislation that provided coverage for medically appropriate care for Lyme disease consistent with that offered by MassHealth.
