{"id":25555,"date":"2019-03-20T11:27:10","date_gmt":"2019-03-20T17:27:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=25555"},"modified":"2019-03-22T10:57:31","modified_gmt":"2019-03-22T16:57:31","slug":"paid-family-leave-proposal-stalls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=25555","title":{"rendered":"Paid family leave proposal stalls"},"content":{"rendered":"

After two days of debate, a proposal to offer paid family and medical leave stalled on general file March 20.<\/p>\n

\"Sen.
Sen. Sue Crawford<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

LB311, sponsored by Bellevue Sen. Sue Crawford, would provide partial wage replacement for eligible workers to care for themselves or a family member following a serious illness or to care for a new child.<\/p>\n

Many Nebraskans have provided or will need to provide care to a loved one at some point in their lives, Crawford said, and for some, it will be their own health that requires extra care.<\/p>\n

\u201cPaid family and medical leave provides workers with the time and wages they need to deal with some of life\u2019s most special or difficult moments so that we can retain a skilled workforce, healthy children and strong families,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

A pending Business and Labor Committee amendment would replace the bill. As amended, LB311 would create the Paid Family and Medical Leave Insurance Act, under which a covered individual would be provided family medical leave for:
\n\u2022 care of a new child after birth, adoption or foster care placement;
\n\u2022 leave during a covered individual\u2019s serious illness or pregnancy;
\n\u2022 care of a family member with a serious health condition;
\n\u2022 care of a covered service member who is next of kin; and
\n\u2022 qualified exigency leave as defined in the bill.<\/p>\n

A covered individual would be entitled to take leave under the bill beginning Jan. 1, 2022. Available leave would vary between six and 12 weeks during any calendar year dependent on the qualified reason for the leave.<\/p>\n

A covered individual could not receive family medical leave benefits and unemployment or workers\u2019 compensation benefits at the same time. Benefit amounts would be determined by a covered individual\u2019s yearly earnings as a percentage of Nebraska\u2019s average weekly wage.<\/p>\n

Nebraska has an opportunity to prove that it is a \u201cfamily first” state, Omaha Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh said in support of LB311.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe keep talking about how to recruit and retain people to this state, but we\u2019re not willing to have the real, hard conversations about what people are looking for in a home,\u201d she said. \u201cThey\u2019re looking for benefits, for where [they] can raise a family, for livability\u2014we\u2019re not offering them that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also supporting the bill was Lincoln Sen. Matt Hansen, who said allowing people paid family and medical leave when necessary ultimately results in a better workforce.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hear time and time again from individuals who have to work while they\u2019re sick or work while taking care of a family member … that if they just had a few extra days or a few extra weeks to actually get healthy, to get settled … that they could be more productive and [functional] at work,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

As a young woman, Peru Sen. Julie Slama said she supports the concept of paid leave, but that the bill as written would \u201ccripple\u201d small businesses in rural districts.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf this bill were to be implemented and we were to see people taking these 12-week periods off to care for a new child … it\u2019s not as simple as going to the local temp agency and getting someone to fill that role for the next three months,\u201d Slama said. \u201cThat role will remain vacant because we already can\u2019t fill the jobs that we have.\u201d<\/p>\n

She introduced an amendment, which is pending, that would reduce available leave to four to six weeks during a calendar year, dependent on the qualified reason for leave.<\/p>\n

North Platte Sen. Mike Groene also opposed the bill, saying it was unnecessary and would be detrimental to business.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a \u2018nail in the coffin\u2019 of economic development for this state,\u201d Groene said. \u201cIt drives people away and it drives businesses away.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Legislature moved to the next item on the agenda before voting on LB311 or the pending amendments. Per a practice implemented by Speaker Jim Scheer, the sponsor of a bill that is facing a potential filibuster must demonstrate sufficient support for a cloture motion before the measure will be scheduled for additional debate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After two days of debate, a proposal to offer paid family and medical leave stalled on general file March 20.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25548,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[106],"class_list":["post-25555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-and-labor","tag-sen-sue-crawford"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/LB311CrawfordMurman3-19-19a.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25555"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25555\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25611,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25555\/revisions\/25611"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}