BILL NUMBER: S17A

SPONSOR: MAYER
 
TITLE OF BILL:

An act to amend the labor law, in relation to authorizing employees to
petition an employer to apply to participate in a shared work program
for purposes of avoiding a reduction in workforce or for purposes of
re-hiring

 
PURPOSE OR GENERAL IDEA OF BILL:

To provide employees with a right to petition their employer to consider
a shared work program in lieu of layoffs, or for purposes of re-hiring
laid off employees.

 
SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:

Section 1 provides that a majority of the employees of an employer may
petition an employer, in writing, within ten days after a layoff, or in
advance of a layoff if there is a good faith expectation of a layoff, to
              

implement a shared work program for purposes of avoiding such layoff or
to enable re-hiring of laid off workers. The employer would have to
respond in writing within seven days. In no event would an employer be
permitted to discriminate, retaliate, or take other adverse action
against any employee for exercising this petitioning right.

Section 2 provides the effective date.

 
JUSTIFICATION:

Shared work programs allow employers to reduce employee hours across the
board in order to avoid layoffs. The state then makes up the loss of
wages resulting from those reduced working hours through unemployment
insurance assistance. However, unlike other countries, particularly in
Europe, where shared work has been implemented widely to avoid job loss-
es, the United States, despite having shared work programs available,
has not seen significant uptake.

This bill encourages broader use of shared work programs by granting
employees a right to petition their employer to implement a shared work
program in order to avoid layoffs, or to re-hire laid off workers, thus
creating another avenue by which employers may be made aware of the
option and encouraging its use. While the employer would have to respond
in writing to such a petition, there would be no obligation to implement
a shared work program. Furthermore, because the bill would bar any
retaliatory action for petitioning, workers would be protected against
retaliation when bringing the program to their employer's attention.

This bill is particularly salient in the time of state-imposed COVID-19
restrictions, continued concerns about infection, and other consider-
ations that limit the ability of many businesses to re-open at full
strength. Rather than these businesses only re-hiring a portion of their
workforce, shared work programs would allow a business to re-hire the
entire slate of pre-closure workers (or a larger portion than they
otherwise would) at reduced hours. This would result in more workers
being re-employed and reduced unemployment insurance benefit costs, and
businesses would have the benefit of maintaining existing relationships
with more workers, so that when they eventually open back up at full
capacity, they can avoid the transaction costs of having to make and
train new hires.

The United States Department of Labor recently issued guidance making
clear that shared work programs can be used for purposes of re-opening
the economy through the re-hiring of laid off workers, and suggests that
such use would be beneficial to both businesses and workers.

This bill provides one more tool for workers to help themselves get back
to work and to help their employers renew the integrity of pre-closure
operations and avoid future layoffs.

 
PRIOR LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:

2020: Referred to Rules

 
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:

None.

 
EFFECTIVE DATE:
This act shall take effect immediately.