11/13/2008
CONTACT: Tom Jones, 307-635-8524 or Tony Malandra, 415-664-9685
Results from member ballots to set 2009 legislative agenda
CHEYENNE, Wyo. -- Voting still continues for Wyoming's small business owners, those employers of more workers and generators of more jobs than big business, big labor and big government.
Each year, the National Federation of Independent Business, America's leading small business association, polls its members on issues vital to their survival as entrepreneurs at both the state and federal levels. The federal ballots will be going out next month. But right now, NFIB/Wyoming members are mailing, faxing, e-mailing, and one-clicking their responses to four questions on their 2009 State Member Ballot:
- Should the Legislature increase benefits for temporary total disability for lower-wage employees?
- Should the Legislature add a cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) for employees who are receiving extended benefits for permanent total disability?
- Should the Legislature increase the benefit paid to the surviving spouse of a worker killed on the job?
- Should the Legislature increase the monthly benefit paid to surviving children of a worker killed on the job from $150 per month to $250 per month and increase the maximum age to which the child can receive the benefit from age 21 to age 25, so long as the child is in school?
- Should the Legislature provide coverage for mental injuries to workers who have not sustained a physical injury?
- Should the Legislature establish a pilot program for healthcare for the working poor using community health centers as the primary care provider?
Unique among most associations, NFIB centers its state and federal lobbying positions on what its members tell it -- through regular balloting -- are important to their survival and solvency. Small businesses are not smaller versions of bigger business. Among those distinctions are that it costs small business owners 45 percent more per employee to comply with the same regulation as a big business.
Results from the NFIB/Wyoming 2009 Member Ballot will be publicized after a 5 percent return. For more information about the Member Ballot, please phone NFIB/Wyoming State Director Tom Jones at 307-635-8524.
