Pennsylvania’s Capitol building in Harrisburg. (Photo by Amanda Berg for the Capital-Star)
The state House Labor & Industry Committee advanced two bills on Monday, even as the majority and minority chairs argued over partisanship.
House Bill 2548, would guarantee that all workers employed in the state would earn one hour of paid leave for every 40 hours worked and could use up to 40 hours of leave per year. It passed along party lines.
“This earned leave could be used for any reason, an illness of the worker or their family member, an important appointment, or a personal reason,” said state Rep. Jen O’Mara (D-Delaware), sponsor of the legislation. “Having the ability to earn and use paid leave means a person doesn’t have to choose between a paycheck and going to work or caring for a sick loved one. It means a parent can afford to take a day off work to chaperone their child’s field trip.”
O’Mara added that the bill creates a small business grant program to help employers implement its provisions and argued that nearly 20 other states already have enacted similar legislation, along with some local municipalities.
Multiple Republicans spoke out in opposition, questioning the impact it would have on small businesses in the state.
“I don’t believe that the state should be telling businesses how to run their business,” state Rep. Barb Gleim (R-Cumberland) said. “We continue under this majority in the House to create a nanny state, and businesses have their own HR handbooks already in place that best fit their businesses.”
Gleim added that she believes that they should be “encouraging nonprofits to expand their help in this area and leave it to the people and not the state.”
State Rep. Joe D’Orsie (R-York) said he viewed the grant program for small businesses that was approved as an amendment for the legislation as “an admission that it will be extremely difficult for small businesses to comply with,” and described it as a “heavy-handed mandate.”
State Rep. Ryan Mackenzie (R-Lehigh), who is the Minority Chair of the House Labor & Industry Committee, said he received a number of letters from a variety of stakeholder groups that opposed the legislation and questioned if “anybody” is “in favor of this legislation?”
“I am a part of a coalition of stakeholders here in the state that have been working on this, including organizations in labor and organizations that advocate for workers,” O’Mara responded.
“And to be clear, someone mentioned the job of the state, I would argue that it is the job of the state to protect Pennsylvania workers and ensure that they are not being taken advantage of by anyone, and that they have dignity and access to paid leave when they need it,” she added.
Mackenzie offered an amendment to the legislation that would insert language to require employers to use the E-Verify system to ensure the employees authorized to legally work in the U.S.
State Rep. Jason Dawkins (D-Philadelphia), majority chairperson of the committee, spoke out against Mackenzie’s proposed amendment, saying that E-Verify is already part of the structure. That amendment failed along party lines.
Before final passage of the bill as amended in the committee, Dawkins and Mackenzie traded jabs over how the committee has been run during the current legislative session.
“It seems to me that for the most part, this committee has run very partisan legislation this legislative session, with no input from the minority committee, no input from a broad array of stakeholders across the spectrum that would be impacted by this legislation,” Mackenzie said.
Mackenzie said he thinks the issue of paid leave is something that they should be discussing, but claimed voting down his E-Verify amendment was akin to “putting illegal immigrants above Pennsylvania workers.”
“They are going to be taking Pennsylvania jobs away from American citizens,” Mackenzie said.
The use of E-Verify has divided unions and immigration advocates in Pennsylvania in previous sessions.
Dawkins accused Mackenzie of “blatantly” lying about partisanship on the committee, noting that it had run bills introduced by Republicans this session.
He also refuted Mackenzie’s claims about undocumented immigrants being prioritized over Pennsylvania workers when the Republican’s amendment on E-Verify failed.
“We believe in the idea of ideas when they make sense, [what] we do not tolerate is the rhetoric and the racist tropes of immigrants taking jobs from Americans. We’re gonna stop that, and we’re going to stop that now,” Dawkins said. “There’s no low wage job anyone’s fighting over. Let me make that very clear, when we talk about the immigration or immigrant population, the jobs that are being filled by immigrants are not jobs that any one of us are looking to take, or any other American are looking to take.”
Dawkins argued that those jobs are “normally bottom paid jobs” in our economy and accused the opposing party of creating a “boogeyman,” in the immigrant population, saying it is “beneath you to even mention that in this committee.”
“We should try really hard to live up to our oath and be the best kind of individuals in this commonwealth,” Dawkins said. “We should not stoop low to those degrading comments in this committee or in this building, you are better than that. So we should stop doing that.”
The committee also approved House Bill 2566 on Monday, which would modernize the Sign Language Interpreter and Transliterator State Registration Act, to ensure that all interpreting and transliteration services used certified workers.
“Unfortunately, Pennsylvanians who are deaf, hard of hearing and blind deaf are facing severe shortages of qualified interpreters,” said state Rep. Jim Haddock (D-Luzerne), sponsor of the legislation.