The Healthy and Safe Families and Workplace Act, is “loaded with problems for employers and employees,” write Jill Andy, senior VP of HR at Amica Mutual Insurance Company, Cindy Butler, director of government affairs for the Rhode Island Society for Human Resource Management, and Laurie White, president of the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce, in an op-ed.
The trio warns that the bill runs counter to HR industry best practices and may hurt employers’ recruitment efforts. They argue that they expect employers to “offer paid leave under reasonable circumstances,” and that the vast number of Rhode Island employers now offer generous and flexible paid leave.
But the bill amounts to “massive overreach” by the government, they note. The bill contains “complicated accrual formulas, postings and record-keeping requirements,” they write. “The penalties for noncompliance are severe. The bill applies to full-time workers, part-time workers, on-call workers, seasonal workers, temporary workers and student interns. Rhode Island employers would have to revamp, recalibrate and modify their payroll systems, making our state a national outlier.”