Restaurant workers and others who work for tips will be left behind, he said. “Mom-and-pop businesses, servers at restaurants—they’re the ones who are going to suffer. It’s never going to be the CEO, it’s going to be the worker,” Sprowls said.
12 Weeks Paid
Colorado will become the ninth state plus the District of Columbia to adopt a mandatory paid family and medical leave program covering private-sector workers, but the first to do it by citizens’ initiative, said Jared Make, a vice president at the advocacy group A Better Balance.
The state-run program will allow employees to take up to 12 weeks of leave without losing their job, will be funded by a premium set at 0.9% of an employee’s wages, half paid by workers and half by employers.
The success of the ballot measure means workers “have finally had a say, and are no longer beholden to the big-business money interests that have been running the show for so long,” said Olga Robak, spokeswoman for the Yes on 118/Colorado Families First campaign.
business interests defeated attempts to get paid family and medical leave through the state legislature six times in the last five years, she said, “but when real people finally get a say, we see that the outcome is completely different.”
‘Intensified’ Interest
Interest in the Colorado initiative “has only been intensified by the pandemic,” said Make, who took part last year in a Colorado General Assembly task force to study paid leave.
“This is something that workers need,” he said. “The United States is a real outlier in terms of not having a federal paid family and medical leave policy in place.”
Make said he has heard interest from many state lawmakers looking for help designing a program for their own states.
“We’re going to see a large number of bills as we enter the 2021 session,” Make said.
Costly Program
The Colorado ballot measure means employers might have to hire temporary workers to fill the jobs of employees on leave at the same time they’re trying to rehire workers they had to lay off because of the pandemic, said Tony Gagliardi, executive director of the Colorado chapter of the National Federation of Independent Business.
He said the cost of the program has been estimated to be as high as $1.3 billion.
“This is a program the state of Colorado can’t afford and puts at risk every taxpayer in the state,” Gagliardi said.
Covid-19 made voters more sensitive to the needs of workers and their families, Robak said.
“This program is incredibly affordable and will help us prepare for future emergencies,” she said. “It creates a more family-friendly business environment that allows workers to put their families first.”
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.