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Action Alert


Voice Your Opposition to Paid Family Leave

Can your business afford to lose a key employee for up to 12 weeks? Help NFIB stop the paid family leave mandate.

A paid family leave mandate will be one more threat to the viability of small businesses in New York -- which already has the second highest cost of doing business in the nation. The governor and Legislature should be taking steps to lessen the costs and burdens placed on business in New York, not adding to them.

It is critical that you contact the governor and your legislator TODAY to voice your opposition to this dangerous proposal.

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David A. Paterson (D-NY), Governor

Your State Upper Chamber Representatives

Your State Lower Chamber Representatives

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As a small business owner, I write to strongly oppose the proposal to mandate paid family leave.

The more than 1.4 million small businesses in New York are the backbone of our state's economy. Small businesses drive new job creation, account for most of the private sector employment in New York, and define our communities and main streets.

Small businesses in New York struggle with the second highest cost of doing business in the nation. Between taxes, regulations, mandates, healthcare costs and energy costs -- all of which are disproportionately high in New York -- many small businesses are fighting for their very survival. Mandating paid family leave would be one more burden making that fight all the more difficult.

Despite claims to the contrary, mandating paid family leave would impose costs on small business, and advocates seem to give no consideration whatsoever to the significant costs we would incur when replacing or covering for a worker on paid family leave. The cost of the program will grow over time as more and more employees take leave, and advocates are already calling for the weekly benefit rate for those on family leave to be increased -- before the legislation has even been enacted! This plan would also impose significant expenses to our business in terms of tracking and reporting leave, administering new statutory provisions and notifying employees of the new law.

The long-term absence of key employees is perhaps the greatest problem mandated paid family leave poses for small business. Small businesses, by their very nature, do not have excess labor. Every employee counts.  Losing an essential employee for months at a time can be crippling.

Small business owners value their employees, and understand that we all have family obligations. Most small business owners provide flexible leave for family situations, and do so in a way that meets the needs of both the employee and the business owner. According to a recent small business poll conducted by the National Federation of Independent Business, 97 percent of small business owners indicated that they provide flexible working hours when personal or family situations arise. One-size-fits-all mandates like this are not the answer and are a serious threat to our small business.

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