The health families act, introduced by Ted Kennedy,
would require employers to provide employees with up to 56 hours of paid sick leave.
As taken from a report put out by SHRM (The Society of Human Resource Professionals), “the Healthy Families Act (HFA) would require public and private employers with 15 or more employees to allow employees to accrue one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked. An employee begins accruing the sick leave at commencement of employment and is able to begin using the leave after 60 days. The paid sick time could be used for the employee’s own medical needs or to care for a child, parent, spouse, or any other blood relative, or for an
absence resulting from domestic violence, sexual assault or stalking.”
Once again we have government dictating a one-size-fits-all “solution” to every employer, with no provision for individual selection by employers or employees. Like much other micro-managing by our congressmen (most of whom have never run a business or had to meet a payroll), this bill will force many businesses, especially small employers, to spend their limited money on this instead of raising wages, adding or increasing other employee-desired benefits, or even hiring more people. Seems to me that allowing independent business owners the flexibility and means to meet the unique needs of their own workforce would be preferable