NFIB lobbying helped senators see the light on costly, ill-conceived proposal
A proposal to stick Nebraska small-business owners with a cost-heavy and compliant-crippling paid family leave law is dead for the year.
Legislative Bill 311 surfaced on senators’ agenda March 19 and when debate finally wrapped up March 20, it was removed from further consideration—and is not likely to reappear anytime soon. Because a vote wasn’t taken, it still remains technically alive.
“At least for a while, small-business owners can breathe a sigh of relief,” said Bob Hallstrom, NFIB’s Nebraska state director who helped spearhead opposition to LB 311, which was sponsored by Sen. Sue Crawford. “There will be future attempts to impose a paid leave program on our state but the effective defeat of LB 311 means those future efforts will have to be better thought out and much less costly.”
Paid family leave was part of the progressive agenda that washed over every state following last year’s election. Had it passed here, in the form of LB 311, employers would have been required:
- to contribute up to 1 percent of gross wages to pay for an employee’s medical leave
- to pay all other benefits to which an employee would have been entitled in the absence of the leave, as well as all other benefits offered to the employee (vacation, sick leave, etc.)
- to allow the employee to return to his or her position after exercising the right to family medical leave.
The insurance program called for under LB 311 would have begun July 1, 2021, and would have been administered by the state Department of Labor in a similar manner to Nebraska’s unemployment insurance system.
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“The majority of businesses big and small already offer paid leave,” said Hallstrom. “Add that to LB 311’s cost and compliance, and it clearly became too much to demand of Nebraska’s employers.”
“The vast majority of small employers (73%) offer paid time off (PTO) to the majority of their full-time employees, and 67 percent of them offer two weeks or more of leave. The number of days offered is dependent on an employee’s length of service in 76 percent of small businesses offering the benefit.”
