Earlier this afternoon, the Connecticut House began debate on House Bill 6187 which would mandate that employers provide paid sick leave to employees .  You can watch the debate live at CT-N here.

I’ve previously discussed the bill at length in various posts here.  The basic measure would require every business of 50 employees or more to grant workers one hour of paid sick time for every 40 hours of work with a cap of 6.5 paid days per year. You can find the text of the underlying bill here.

Connecticut would be the first day to pass such a bill.

However, as of this afternoon, there were 26 amendments that were proposed to the bill so how the bill is finally structured is unknown. The bill’s passage generally is expected, but various groups, including the CBIA have voiced their opposition to it, particularly given the economic climate.  The debate is expected to last for some time.

I’ll recap the vote on the bill as events warrant and you can follow my twitter feed for further updates throughout this afternoon and evening @danielschwartz.