LANSING — With sick time policy changes set to take effect this Friday, advocates of Michigan’s agriculture industry are urging lawmakers to reach a deal on a possible intervention.
Under current law, employers of all sizes will be required to provide one hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours worked. Employees of small businesses can take up to 40 hours paid and 32 hours unpaid per year, while large business employees can take up to 72 hours paid.
Businesses are no longer considered ‘small’ if they employ 10 or more people for 20 work weeks in a year. Those weeks do not need to be consecutive, and the designation lasts for that calendar year and the next.
‘Employee’ includes anyone that works for compensation from a business, whether full-time, part-time or temporary.
Business organizations are raising concerns about the impact that the policies could have on Northern Michigan farms, which often have temporary workforces that vary in size throughout the year.
“Virtually every business in Michigan agriculture relies in some way on workers that are are working part of the year or on a part time basis,” said Chuck Lippstreu, president of the Michigan Agri-Business Association.
Lippstreu says that workforce reliability is essential in a time- and weather-sensitive business like agriculture.
“They have to be able to staff very quickly and to make operational changes on a rapidly changing timetable,” he said.
In current policy, employees can miss three consecutive days of work before being required to provide some form of documentation for their illness or situation.
The Democratic-Senate plan maintains the three-day rule but allows some industries like nursing to impose their own policies, while the Republican-House plan says that businesses can put their own requirements into place.
“For employees that might be taking leave, not having any sort of notice that that’s happening provides a major challenge for agricultural businesses that have to make operational changes very quickly during some of these busy times the year,” Lippstreu said.
The Democratic plan defines a small business as one with less than 25 employees, and includes part-time and temporary workers in that figure.
The Republican plan excludes both employees who work less than 25 weeks in a year, and those who work less than 25 hours a week on average. It also excludes employees of all businesses with less than 50 full-time workers.
Both plans would allow employers to front-load their employees with 72 hours at the beginning of the year, after which accrual wouldn’t need to be tracked.