The Connecticut Labor & Public Employees Committee is now scheduled to hold a hearing on various labor bills of relevance and importance to employers in Connecticut. Some are re-hashes of bills raised last year, but others, including amendments to the state’s FMLA laws are new.  The hearing is scheduled for February 5, at 2 p.m. at the Legislative Office Building, Room 2-E.

Here are some of the bills scheduled to be discussed (the full list is available here):

• Raised S.B. 710 is a bill that makes some significant changes to the state FMLA law. The changes — at least most of them — are not as dramatic as they would first seem; if passed, it would make Connecticut’s FMLA more in line with the federal FMLA.  However, given the mess that now exists between CTFMLA and FMLA, it doesn’t go far enough in ensuring a bit more consistency between both laws. But, with a bit of optimism, perhaps these differences — which are outlined here –– can be fleshed out further at the public hearing.
• Raised H.B. 6188 brings workplace bullying — the subject of a hearing and consideration last year — back to the forefront. But this time, the bill is a bit more narrow and designed only to be applied to state workers.  Nevertheless, it’ll be interesting to see if it goes very far again this year.
• Raised S.B. 715 would require employers to provide a reason for terminating their employees.  It would also require employers to keep these termination notices for ten years.  It’ll be interesting to see if this bill goes anywhere.  Conceptually, it appears this bill could alter the at-will employment rule in Connecticut, which allows employers and employees to end an employment relationship for any reason or for no reason at all.  After all, if employers need to provide a reason, doesn’t that mean that the employees are not "at-will"?
• Raised H.B. 6187 is this year’s version of the paid sick leave bill.  It would require employers of 50 or more employees  to provide employees with six or more paid sick leave days.