If a paid family and medical leave bill does not pass the state Legislature this session, the issue could end up before voters as a ballot question, according to Senate President Stan Rosenberg.
The Senate last year passed a bill to create a paid family and medical leave program, and similar legislation filed in January has support from the majority of lawmakers – at least 93 representatives and 25 senators.
“I am hopeful that the legislature will take this question up during this term and get it to the governor’s desk,” Rosenberg wrote during a question-and-answer session on Facebook Wednesday. “If we fail to do so, I expect there will be a ballot question putting this matter into the hands of voters. It would be far better to do it in the legislature than the ballot. Everyone concerned about this should contact their state representative, their state senator and the governor.”
Filed by Senate Ways and Means Chairwoman Karen Spilka and Rep. Ken Gordon, the bills (S 1048, H 2172) create an insurance program making workers eligible for paid leave to recover from a serious illness or injury, care for a sick or injured family member or care for a new child. The two bills differ in some areas – maximum weekly benefit is set at $650 under Gordon’s bill and $1,000 in Spilka’s – but both call for the leave to be financed at least in part by employer contributions and allow employers to require that workers contribute up to 50 percent of the premium cost.
The bills are scheduled for discussion before the Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development at a June 13 hearing. The committee’s new chairs – Rep. Paul Brodeur and Sen. Jason Lewis – are both co-sponsors of Gordon’s bill, and Lewis is also signed on to Spilka’s bill.
The paid leave bills are backed by the Raise Up Massachusetts coalition, which led a successful campaign in 2014 for a ballot law providing earned paid sick leave to Massachusetts workers.
The coalition also supports raising the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour and members have said a 2018 ballot question could be in the cards if that effort doesn’t succeed legislatively.
Raise Up Massachusetts spokesman Steve Crawford told the News Service the coalition is considering going to the ballot on paid family leave as well.
Rosenberg wrote in the Facebook chat that he has supported “increasing the minimum wage for all of my 30 years in the Legislature.”
“In the Senate we have also been working on closing the income and wealth gap, starting with increasing the minimum to enhancing access to benefits like paid sick time, paid family and medical leave, and increasing the earned income tax credit for working families,” he wrote. “All of these can contribute to improving individual lives and families’ circumstances as well as the economy as a whole.”
