SB 415 provides certainty state’s employers need

“Absent this legislation, hundreds of local units of government across the state could each enact their own rules and regulations governing private employers’ relations with their employees, creating inconsistency, confusion and a bureaucratic and red tape nightmare.” NM ACI, a statewide business advocacy group

Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to take up a bill that would prevent local governments from adopting their own labor laws that differ from state and federal laws.

Now, local entities have the authority to put in place a patchwork of laws that can be burdensome and expensive for businesses, and can easily push jobs across city, county — or even state — lines.

Senate Bill 415, the Uniformity of Employment Law terms, gets rid of that patchwork and provides the certainty businesses need regarding employee scheduling, paid leave and other benefits.

It sounds nice in theory for a municipality or county to want to protect or benefit employees — for example, by requiring that all private employers schedule work shifts three weeks out, offer all additional work to existing employees before hiring new ones, allow workers to swap shifts at will and provide 56 hours of sick leave. (Those were all features of an ordinance the Albuquerque City Council introduced, then withdrew, in 2015.)

But how do you as an employer stick to a schedule that’s three weeks out when employees call in sick or quit? How do you let your workers decide to work four 12-hour shifts when you need five eight-hour shifts? And if you have employees across the state, is it fair to them that you may have to provide different benefits based on whether they are in Albuquerque or Las Cruces or Rio Rancho?

And, of course, there is the cost of compliance. How do you absorb the cost and/or time to prove you are complying with each new law and how it affects each employee?

SB 415, sponsored by Sen. George Muñoz, D-Gallup, recognizes that the last thing New Mexico — which is ranked near the bottom in having a business-friendly environment — needs is another patchwork of regulations. Employers will likely flee ASAP. SB 415 supporters understand a business is born from the owner’s investment — often life savings — and sweat. It is not the government’s to run. And as the Journal argued back in 2015, it’s not as though the workplace is unregulated — there are state laws, federal laws, labor laws, wage and hour laws, environmental rules, OSHA and more.

SB415 passed the Senate Corporations and Transportation Committee last week on a bipartisan 5-3 vote. Senate Judiciary members, as well as the full Senate and House, should join in recognizing that businesses want clarity, uniformity and certainty, and when that’s not available they will move somewhere with less confusing and more workable regulations.

If SB 415 does not pass, that somewhere will all too soon be out of state.