Sick-Leave Mandate Will Save Businesses $74M, Study Says
Backers of a bill that would allow hundreds of thousands of Bay State workers to begin earning paid sick leave touted the findings of a new report last week that suggested employers would save money under the proposal. But one House supporter said she was still uncertain the bill could gain traction in the waning months of the election-year session.
“I would like to see it move. We have a lot of support. It’s also getting to the end of the session,” Rep. Kay Khan said, indicating that she planned to meet with House Speaker Robert DeLeo this week on the issue to try to “rejuvenate his thinking on it.”
Khan and Sen. Patricia Jehlen hosted an information session last Monday at the capitol to discuss the findings of a new report by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, which concluded that the proposal to mandate paid leave for most Bay State workers will save $74 million per year for businesses and taxpayers. The institute is a national think tank that focuses primarily on domestic women’s issues, including paid sick days.
The report estimates that the bill would cost employers roughly $198 million in additional benefits, but would yield $224 million in savings through reduced employee turnover, training expenses and lost productivity. The study projects $24 million in direct healthcare savings through lower expenditures for services to workers and their families, and another $24 million in reduced annual expenses associated with emergency department usage and fewer norovirus outbreaks in nursing homes, the report stated.
“We need to find out why folks are so reluctant to give their good workers time they need,” Khan said, echoing the remarks of Jehlen, who said it’s hard to understand why employers would not want to give workers the benefit.
Business groups, including Associated Industries of Massachusetts and the state chapter of the National Federation of Independent Business, have strongly resisted mandating sick leave, warning the bill could cost the economy as many as 12,000 jobs and claiming such policies are best established by employers.
“The employers who can afford to offer this benefit are already doing it,” Bill Vernon, state director of the NFIB, said in a statement. “To believe that it should be mandated is to believe that some employers are acting against their own financial interest because they don’t care about their workers.”
Brad MacDougall, associate vice president of government affairs at AIM, said the study missed the point of businesses’ biggest objection to the bill. “The report doesn’t contradict the main argument which is that it’s all about the freedom of Massachusetts employers to make decision about benefits. The point that our members vehemently oppose is that they object to the mandatory nature of the legislation,” MacDougall told the News Service.
Deadline Looms
The bill is pending before the Health Care Financing Committee, which has a June 1 deadline to make a decision.
Khan did not rule out the possibility of offering the paid sick leave proposal as an amendment to healthcare cost containment legislation expected to be debated in the House in the coming weeks.
Of the 910,000 workers in Massachusetts without paid sick leave, approximately 531,000 would receive some type of paid leave under the bill, according to the report, while another 50,000 would receive unpaid leave that at least offered job security for time missed at work.n
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