Paid leave is pro-business, pro-worker

Hindsight is undefeated, and the best way to view the Paid Family and Medical Leave proposal in the Legislature is to look at what similar policies in the past caused — or more importantly, did not cause — today.

If you believe the rhetoric from some Senate Republicans during floor debate last Saturday, paid family and medical leave will cause hundreds of small businesses to immediately lay off employees, shut their doors or leave the state for the greener pastures of Texas or Arizona (but not Colorado, which passed this policy in 2020).

We have served in the Legislature for years and have seen and participated in every contentious, passionate and sometimes nasty fight over policies that, according to the naysayers, pit workers against small-business owners. Yet, each and every time, they have been dead wrong once the smoke clears. What has always been true is that when stakeholders come together to craft thoughtful policies, small businesses and workers win together.

You may remember some of these fights, too. In 2007, the Legislature passed the Dee Johnson Clean Indoor Air Act, prohibiting smoking indoors.

This proposal was championed by workers seeking healthy workplace conditions and small-business owners, including bar owners, who wanted healthier workplaces for themselves and their employees. But numerous Republicans led the charge to try to defeat this bill on behalf of silent big business interests like the tobacco industry, using the argument it would put small restaurants and local bars out of business. Now, 16 years later, this law is a no-brainer for small-business owners, workers and customers alike.

In 2019, the Legislature passed the first minimum wage increase in a decade, moving the minimum wage from $7.50 an hour to $9 an hour. If the predictable Republican rhetoric from just four years ago came true today, there would have been mass layoffs and just a handful of local restaurants and small businesses would be left standing. They were dead wrong again, in their effort to protect silent big business interests.

On policy after policy, from making out-of-state corporations pay the same tax rate as New Mexico’s small businesses, to last year’s debate on a paid sick leave policy, to this year’s paid family and medical leave proposal, the repetition of some Republicans’ soundtrack is only matched by its inaccuracy.

Their claims of layoffs, business closures, government overreach and the like are flat-out wrong. Their populist appeals mask their real intent — to support really big business interests over the small businesses that make New Mexico work.

Paid family and medical leave will cost employers just $200 per year for the average New Mexico worker. That’s just 55 cents a day. These same workers will then come back and continue to work for the employer, with increased loyalty. Without such a policy, workers facing pregnancy, a catastrophic illness or domestic violence will leave the business for good, creating a costly and time-consuming hiring and job training process for small business owners.

Paid family and medical leave is great for workers and the small business owners who employ them. Don’t let Republican talking points convince you otherwise in their attempt to champion big business interests. Their arguments have been wrong every time before. They are wrong again now.