Bill seeks to cover fewer workers with paid sick leave recently approved by Alaska voters

Alaska’s voter-approved mandate for paid sick leave has not yet gone into effect, but some lawmakers are already trying to reduce the number of workers who would benefit from it.

A bill pending in the Alaska Legislature, House Bill 161, would exempt businesses with fewer than 50 employees, a change from the 15-employee threshold in the labor-rights initiative that voters approved in November. The bill would also drop seasonal workers from the mandate for accrued paid sick leave. The bill was introduced on March 28 by Rep. Justin Ruffridge, R-Soldotna, with Rep. Julie Coulombe, R-Anchorage, as a co-sponsor. Both are members of the House minority. It has the support of a key majority member; House Majority Leader Chuck Kopp, R-Anchorage, signed on as a co-sponsor on April 14.

It addresses Ballot Measure 1, a three-part citizen initiative that will raise Alaska’s minimum wage and protect workers against any employer-imposed political or religious meetings, as well as mandate paid sick leave, based on time accrued over work periods. Voters approved Ballot Measure 1 by a 58-42 percent margin. The new law is set to go into effect on July 1.

Ruffridge and Coulombe, during the bill’s first hearing on Wednesday, described the proposed changes as modifications that fit within the state constitution’s limits. While the constitution forbids sweeping changes within two years to any voter-passed initiatives, the bill “in no way seeks to repeal or change some of the key provisions of Ballot Measure 1,” chiefly the minimum-wage hike that was probably the most popular element, Ruffridge told the House Labor and Commerce Committee.

Coulombe said the changes amounted to a “few tweaks” that are necessary to help small businesses.

“What will happen if we don’t try to amend this a little bit, make the language a little cleaner and make it more adaptable to small businesses, we have small businesses that might actually just go out of business,” she told the committee.

The bill has the enthusiastic backing of the Alaska Chamber, a business group that campaigned against the ballot measure.

In testimony at Wednesday’s hearing of the House Labor and Commerce Committee, Kati Capozzi, the chamber’s president, called it a “vital correction” to a pending mandate that burdens small businesses, especially in the tourism and hospitality sectors.

“Maybe well-intentioned or maybe not, Ballot Measure 1 introduced a one-size-fits-all mandate that failed to account for Alaska’s unique economic landscape,” she said.

Echoing earlier comments by Ruffridge and Coulombe, Capozzi said voters were less aware of Ballot Measure 1’s sick-leave provisions than they were of the wage hike. “It’s become clear that many voters did not understand the true and full implications of the ballot measure,” she said.

One of the leaders of the Ballot Measure 1 campaign vowed to work against House Bill 161.

“For me, it’s really important that the voters will be respected here,” Joelle Hall, president of the Alaska AFL-CIO, said Thursday. “The voters have made this choice. The voters have said, ‘We would like this to happen.’ And whether or not the business groups can use a smaller group of people, the Alaska Legislature, to try to undo their will — that is something we will fight.”

Hall disputed the bill sponsors’ characterization of the changes as minor.

“This, in my mind, is a substantial change. It is repealing the benefit that the voters voted for,” she said.

She also disputed the contention that voters had not paid attention to the sick-leave provisions in the initiative.

“That is just silliness, because we were very clear that it was earned sick leave,” she said. “Almost all of our advertising was about that, so almost every single ad we put out was about somebody’s earned sick-leave benefit.”

She said she was expecting some pushback on the bill’s provisions, but not this soon.

“It’s a little bit shocking to me that it’s such an aggressive overreach of what the voters passed,” she said. “I’m not surprised that they’re going to fight us on this tooth and nail every single session, to try to claw it back. I’m a little surprised they’re starting before it’s even a law.”

Alaska was not the only state where voters in November approved a mandate for paid sick leave. Similar initiatives passed in Missouri and Nebraska.

Several other states already required paid sick leave prior to last year’s election.