Some lawmakers get behind paid leave
Recent shake-ups in Legislature could give it better chance
With a new proposal pending before the Albuquerque City Council that would guarantee paid time off to nearly every Albuquerque worker by 2022, some New Mexico legislators say they are ready once again to push for a similar policy statewide.
This time, according to one lawmaker, it might actually pass.
While such legislation has always dead-ended somewhere in the Capitol building, Sen. Jerry Ortiz y Pino, D-Albuquerque, said recent shake-ups in the Legislature could change that.
“I think it’s going to be a much more receptive (New Mexico) Senate,” Ortiz y Pino said during a “virtual rally” that community organizers hosted in November to show support for Albuquerque’s new proposal.
The Albuquerque bill, formally introduced late last year by City Councilors Pat Davis and Lan Sena, called for workers to start earning paid leave starting Jan. 1 at companies with at least 10 employees. Those with three to nine employees would have to implement the benefit by 2022.
The City Council has postponed a vote on the proposal until early February. Councilor Trudy Jones suggested the deferral, saying the bill needed further vetting and suggesting the council wait to see what action, if any,
the state Legislature takes regarding a statewide paid leave policy.
“As the largest city in the state, we should comply with what the state is doing in order to make this workable and usable if we do it,” she said.
The bill follows a series of failed attempts — including councilor-sponsored legislation and a citywide ballot question — to implement such a mandate in Albuquerque.
Business associations have lodged fierce battles against such proposals, contending they would add costs and hurt industry. Advocates, meanwhile, argue that all workers deserve the opportunity to stay home when they are ill, an argument they say COVID-19 has only strengthened.
In the virtual rally for the proposal, several state lawmakers signaled their support for paid leave.
Rep. Patricia Roybal Caballero, D-Albuquerque, said she was “lucky” when she was diagnosed with cancer as a young woman because she had paid time off to tend to her health. She said everyone deserves what she called that “basic human right” and wants to see it guaranteed to workers statewide.
“We have to stand up and pass a law that will be acknowledged across the board,” she said.
While previous attempts at a statewide paid leave policy have fizzled, Ortiz y Pino said the tides may have changed. Voters ousted several powerful moderate Democratic senators this year, but the party’s majority in the chamber actually increased.
Republican Sen. Greg Baca of Belen agreed paid leave may stand a better chance at passage than before. But he
said he would need to see a specific proposal before taking any position of his own.
“Topics come across my desk and I think, ‘I would never vote for this,’ but it ends up being a really good bill and something
I could support,” he said.
Several bills dealing with paid leave have already been filed in advance of the 60-day session.
One bill filed by Rep. Christine Chandler, D-Los Alamos, the Healthy Workplaces Act, would authorize that employees accrue at least one hour of earned sick leave for every 30 hours worked.
The leave could then be used when employees — or their family members — are dealing with health issues or domestic abuse, among other situations.