Stop the Paid Family Leave Mandate in New York
Issue Overview: Former Gov. Eliot Spitzer promoted a plan to impose a 12-week paid family leave mandate on virtually every private employer in the State of New York, regardless of size. The benefit would be paid by changing the Temporary Disability Insurance (TDI) program to include non-disability related absences from work. Unlike the federal Family and Medical Leave Act, which applies only to businesses with more than 50 employees, this proposal contains no exemption for small business. This proposal is particularly damaging to small businesses, which do not have excess labor and which are ill-equipped to handle such a mandate, particularly as they already struggle with the high cost of doing business in New York. Furthermore, research suggests that such a law is unnecessary, as some 97 percent of small business owners polled nationally by NFIB indicate they already provide flexible leave for family situations. This year, the Assembly began advocating that this proposal should also include job protection -- meaning that not only should employees of businesses of any size be entitled to paid family leave, but also restricting the ability of a small businesses owner to permanently replace that employee.
NFIB Position: We strongly oppose this proposal, which would be extremely harmful to small business. NFIB/New York members spoke out in record numbers in opposition to this proposal, and in our most recent NFIB Member Ballot 92 percent of respondents opposed it.
Issue Status: We led the successful fight to stop this damaging legislation (A.9245) last year. Although the bill passed the Assembly, it was stopped in the Senate, with the Senate's pro-small business majority once again standing up for small business. This year, we once again stopped paid family leave, with the bill failing to go to the floor in either house. The union-backed, anti-business "Working Families Party" continues to identify the paid family leave mandate as a top priority -- and stopping this legislation continues to be a top priority for NFIB.
