New Jersey Family Leave Insurance

New Jersey Family Leave Insurance

In March of 2008, New Jersey became the second state to implement paid family leave. The Family Leave Insurance (FLI) law, like its California counterpart, allows six weeks to care for a new child or a seriously ill relative, including domestic partners or civil union partners. It provides up to two-thirds of salary, with a cap of $524 a week, paid for through payroll deduction, which would amount to about $33 a year for the average worker (although the contribution rate was lowered by half in the beginning of 2011). As with the California law, job protection is not provided.

Cry Wolf Quotes

This is a terrible signal to send. It just interferes with the workplace. This should be left to employers and their workers….[How can employers ensure that workers are properly taking time off?] How do you police any of that? What is an employer going to do, set up a whole office to audit this stuff?

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Arthur Maurice, vice president of the New Jersey Business and Industry Association, The New Jersey Star-Ledger

The state must stop trying to impose mandates and requirements on businesses that our competitors in other states simply don't have to deal with.

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Philip Kirschner, New Jersey Business and Industry Association president. The Associated Press State & Local Wire.

It should occur at the national level and not at the state level. My concern about paid family leave in New Jersey is it will make us uncompetitive with other states such as Pennsylvania.

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New Jersey Senate Minority Leader Leonard Lance (R).The Associated Press State & Local Wire.

I would say that this is still bad legislation for business. It's the same legislative nightmare and the same issues that we argued at 12 weeks are there for six. It's still hard to get temporary workers part time, and it's still going to create a hardship for business.

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Laurie Ehlbeck, state director of the New Jersey chapter of the National Federation of Independent Business, The Bergen County Record