Remember that provision Democrats insisted upon in the CARES Act that provided paid leave to employees in companies with less than 500 workers? Well, it’s shredded now because of President Donald Trump and his Labor Department.
Republicans already forced Democrats to agree that major corporations are exempt from providing paid sick leave to their employees, which screws over 75 percent of American workers. But Democrats did manage to secure a provision so that employees of smaller businesses would receive the benefit.
Of course, just like Trump immediately undermined the part of the law that requires oversight of the $500 billion corporate slush fund and bars him and his family from getting any of it, Trump and Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia moved immediately to gut the paid sick leave provision.
According to the New York Times:
In guidance issued on Wednesday, the Labor Department said that employers at companies with fewer than 50 workers had broad latitude to decline to offer the 12 weeks of paid leave that the law required for workers whose children were home from school or for child care because of the coronavirus pandemic. The legislation, which provides two weeks of paid sick leave and 12 weeks of paid family leave, and reimburses employers for it with tax credits, already excludes workers at companies with more than 500 employees.
[C]ompanies with fewer than 50 employees could decline to provide paid leave for child care if doing so would ’cause the small business to cease operating,’ if workers’ absences would pose ‘a substantial risk’ to the company, or if there were not enough workers ‘able, willing and qualified’ to fill in for the person seeking leave.
Health care providers and first responders, as well as certain federal government employees, can also be denied the paid leave.”
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That pretty much screws over the rest of the American people as well, even though such paid leave should be required across the board during this pandemic — especially since 10 million Americans have filed for unemployment in the last two weeks and still have bills to pay. Corporations and small businesses are getting bailed out, so they should have to keep paying their employees.
The new guidelines basically re-write the law and are in effect through the end of this year. And that’s why Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) strongly voiced their objections in a letter to Scalia.
“First, DOL lacks authority to deviate from the definition provided by Congress,” the pair of lawmakers wrote. “Second, DOL has no basis for defining a term that Congress has defined narrowly elsewhere in labor law to be so unreasonably broad solely for the purposes of allowing exclusions from protections. Third, DOL may not grant broad authority to define this term to state officials. Fourth, DOL is completely out of accordance with law in this interpretation not only for the reasons stated above, but also because it is in contravention of the language of the text.”
The pair also pointed out that the intent of the provision is to help employees who are stuck at home to observe stay-at-home and social distancing orders.
“Under these circumstances, several businesses will obviously not have work to assign to employees, and Congress intended for such workers to still qualify for paid leave in such instances—otherwise, the purpose of the Act would be entirely defeated as workers in the hardest-hit of states would be deprived of paid leave at exactly the moments they need it most,” they continued. “Given that congressional intent was to respond to the unprecedented nature of this pandemic, DOL has the responsibility to provide the maximum flexibility for workers during this crisis — not restricting their leave to when employers grant their consent.”
Sadly, Trump and Scalia will likely ignore this letter just as they are clearly ignoring the law and will throw millions of Americans under the bus during this unprecedented crisis. It’s truly despicable.
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