A Senate committee has voted to amend and advance bills that would require some small employers in New Jersey to provide job protection for employees taking up to 12 weeks of family leave. The legislation, known as A-3451/S-2950, was initially written to lower the employee threshold for mandatory job reinstatement from 30 to five workers. However, after deliberation, the Senate Budget & Appropriations Committee voted 8-5 to raise this threshold to 15 employees.
“Although we appreciate the sponsors working with the small business community and raising the employee threshold for job protection to 15, this is still a bill that will challenge our smaller employers and it still puts New Jersey, once again, in an anti-business outlier status compared to what other states need to offer regarding paid family leave,” said NJBIA Chief Government Affairs Officer Christopher Emigholz.
Two weeks earlier, the Senate Labor Committee decided not to hold a scheduled vote on the original version of the bill. The legislation was subsequently moved to the Senate Budget & Appropriations Committee for further consideration.
Emigholz highlighted that small employers face different challenges than larger companies when it comes to providing job-protection coverage during prolonged absences. He stated: “Under this expanded family leave bill, small employers would be required to not only protect a worker’s job, no matter what their performance level, but ensure that they come back to the same exact position they left before going on leave.”
He continued: “If an employee doesn’t return to that same job, they would have a right to sue their employer under the bill. Those litigation costs would come at a time when small businesses are already challenged by increased wage costs, supply costs, and energy costs. It isn’t right.”
Emigholz argued that small businesses should retain flexibility in making staffing decisions necessary for their survival and growth. “Think about the current employee for a small business who steps up for the person going out on expanded leave and shows they can handle job responsibilities better than the person who went out on leave,” he said.
He also questioned whether employers should be forced into rehiring someone if another worker proves more effective during their absence: “What if that temp worker you were just required to spend all this added money on to train turns out to be a far more productive or effective worker than the person taking leave? Shouldn’t that employer not have the right to make that determination? This bill effectively says ‘no.’”
The New Jersey Family Leave Act was signed into law in 2008 by Gov. Jon Corzine after extensive negotiations between lawmakers aimed at balancing worker protections with business concerns.
Emigholz concluded that changes proposed in this new bill could disrupt previous compromises while adding financial strain on New Jersey’s smallest businesses.
This story was revised at 5:45 p.m. following the committee vote.
