Quick Reads

Firefighter recruitment fund bill advances

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By Robert Nott, The Santa Fe New Mexican

Nearly a year after two federal prescribed burns ignited a historic wildfire northwest of Las Vegas, N.M., devastating communities in more than 530 square miles of Northern New Mexico, the House Labor, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee has approved a bill that aims to help attract and retain firefighters to fight such blazes. 

House Bill 345 would create a firefighter recruitment fund to provide bonuses to firefighters who join a fire department. 

The bill calls for a $5,000 bonus for each new recruit who stays on the job three years. The bill does not include an appropriation or estimate the cost of providing the bonuses. Instead, it would set up a fund with a goal of drawing future money from federal grants, state income earned from investments and legislative appropriations. Rep. Cynthia Borrego, D-Albuquerque, who co-sponsored the bill, said in an interview the sponsors decided to “get a mechanism in place for the funding first and then come back with funding and rules” during next year’s legislative session. 

Rep. Tara Lujan, D-Albuquerque, another co-sponsor, said there may be other funding sources, such as federal grants, available that lawmakers can access before next year’s legislation to start the fund. 

The fund would be administered by the state Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management. Fire officials who attended Tuesday’s hearing lauded the bill, which next goes to the House Appropriations and Finance Committee for consideration. 

They said HB 345 can make a difference when it comes to increasing firefighter numbers in a state prone to wildfires. 

Capt. Martin Salazar of Albuquerque Fire Rescue said in an interview after the hearing a $5,000 incentive could help pull people into a profession that does not pay as well in New Mexico as in other states. 

Data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows the mean annual salary for firefighters nationwide is $55,290.

Brian Baca

A memorial to study paid family medical leave impacts goes to House floor next 

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A memorial that is part of a longer strategy to introduce a bill in next year’s legislature for paid family and medical leave passed 7-2 largely along party lines in the House Labor, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee. House Memorial 3, sponsored by state House Rep. Linda Serrato, D-Santa Fe, asks for a $160,000 appropriation to establish a task force comprised of 16 stakeholders to study the effects of paid family and medical leave in the state. The New Mexico Department of Workforce Solutions would oversee the task force. If a paid family medical leave bill is introduced and passed and signed in 2023, the implementation of the law would fall under the Department of Workforce Solutions, Tracy McDaniel, policy advocate for Southwest Women’s Law Center, told NM Political Report. Creating paid family medical leave in the state is an equity issue because women of color often live in multi-generational households, she said.

Christine Chandler

A combined paid sick leave bill advances from House committee

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A bill that would, if it becomes law, provide earned sick leave for employees in the state passed along party lines in the House Labor, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee on Thursday. The bill passed 5 to 3 with one Democrat absent during the vote. The committee substitute for HB 20, known as the Healthy Workplace Act, was not available online as of Thursday night. Last week, two paid sick leave bills, HB 20 and HB 37 were both heard together in the same committee. At the end of a lengthy debate and considerable public testimony around the bill last week, committee chair Eliseo Lee Alcon, D-Milan, sent the sponsors of the two bills to roll them into one piece of legislation.

Angelica Rubio

Two bills addressing paid sick leave will be rolled into one bill

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After four hours of testimony on two bills that address paid sick leave, House Labor, Veterans and Military Affairs asked the sponsors of both bills to work to roll them into one. The two bills, HB 20  and HB 37, both mandate that employers in the state offer paid sick leave that employees would accrue over a 12-month period, but HB 20 would establish a tiered system of paid time off based on the amount of workers an employer has. For example, employees at a business or organization with fewer than 10 workers would be allowed to earn up to 40 hours of earned sick leave. But employees who work for an employer with 10 or more workers could accrue up to 64 hours of earned sick leave within a 12-month timeframe. State Rep. Christine Chandler, D-Las Alamos, is the lead sponsor of HB 20.

Nondisclosure agreement

Bill that protects victims of sexual harassment gets bipartisan support on the House floor

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A bill that protects victims of sexual harassment, retaliation and discrimination passed the House floor unanimously late Thursday night. The House voted 67-0 in support of HB 21, which prevents an employer from forcing a nondisclosure agreement on an employee who is settling over sexual harassment, discrimination or retaliation. Most cases never reach the courts, said Rep. Dayan Hochman-Vigil, D-Albuquerque, during the House floor discussion. Hochman-Vigil also said that more often than not the victim is no longer employed and cannot get a new job and needs to reach the settlement for financial survival. Proponents of the bill said during committee hearings that the bill really protects future potential victims and that enabling victims to speak about what happened to them can prevent serial abusers.

Association of Commerce and Industry

Pregnant Worker Accommodation easily advances from Senate panel

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A bill that would protect pregnant workers passed 6-0 in the Senate Public Affairs Committee in a jovial, bipartisan mood Thursday night. HB 25 amends the state Human Rights Act to protect pregnant workers or new moms from discriminatiom. 

Democratic Sen. Liz Stefanics, of Cerillos, and Democratic Rep. Gail Chasey, of Albuquerque, are sponsoring the bill. The accommodations the bill allows for are things such as water at a workstation, extra bathroom breaks and a stool. Also, an employer could not force a pregnant worker to take time off from work due to pregnancy. The bill passed the House floor 65-0 last week.

Dayan Hochman-Vigil

Committee passes bill to eliminate NDAs for sexual harassment settlements

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A bill to protect victims of sexual harassment in the workplace passed easily with a 5-0 vote in the House Labor, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee Tuesday. HB 21, sponsored by Rep. Dayan Hochman-Vigil, D-Albuquerque, seeks to protect victims of sexual harassment in the workplace by allowing the victim to decide if she or he wants a nondisclosure agreement when the employee and employer settle. Hochman-Vigil said the bill had been amended to reflect that the bill would only apply to private employers because a different bill applies to public employers. There was no opposition to the bill. Expert witness Erika Anderson, an Albuquerque-based attorney, said most sexual harassment cases settle and that often the victim feels forced to sign a nondisclosure agreement.

Family Policy Alliance of New Mexico

Bill for pregnant workers passes committee with support from all sides

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A bill to support pregnant workers brought both abortion rights and anti-abortion groups together and passed unanimously 13-0 in the House Judiciary Committee Friday. HB 25, the Pregnant Worker Accommodation bill, aims to protect pregnant workers and allow new moms to be able to ask for “reasonable accommodations” from an employer while pregnant or newly parenting. Advocates of the bill say those accommodations include things like asking for a stool to sit on or more bathroom breaks, additional water to drink and the ability to refrain from heavy lifting. If an employer does not comply, the pregnant worker could file a complaint with the New Mexico Human Rights Commission. The bill passed the House Labor, Veteran, Military Affairs Committee earlier this week.

Gail Chasey

A bill to protect pregnant workers passes first hurdle

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A bill that advocates say protects pregnant workers passed unanimously through its first committee Tuesday with no opposition. HB 25, called the Pregnant Worker Accommodation Bill, went before the House Labor, Veteran, Military Affairs Committee. This isn’t the first time House committee members have heard this bill. Rep. Gail Chasey, D-Albuquerque, sponsored the bill in past sessions, but she said the bill introduced during the 2019 session went through negotiation with the Hospitality Association and New Mexico Counties, an association that represents all 33 counties, and that took ten days. It then died on the House floor.

Minimum Wage

Disagreement continues on minimum wage legislation

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With only days left in the 2019 legislative session, the struggle between the Senate and the House of Representatives over how to reset New Mexico’s minimum wage law continued Tuesday when a House committee clashed with a senator over competing proposals. And while the differences may be minimal to some — an extra dollar an hour in the House bill, a lower minimum wage for high school students in the Senate bill, for example — Sen. Clemente Sanchez, D-Grants, said if the two sides continue to butt heads on the matter, the state’s lowest-paid workers will suffer. “I do not want to get to the point where we cannot work something out and we have no minimum wage [increase],” Sanchez told members of the House Labor, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee. “That’s more of a tragedy than either one of these bills not passing.” But the five members of the committee present for the hearing on Sanchez’s Senate Bill 437 were unmoved, voting 5-0 to attach what he considered an “unfriendly amendment” to his bill and thus putting it more in alignment with a House bill working its way through the Senate side.