Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Leonora Dodge (Member; acting as clerk)]: We have more than a quorum. Howdy, Emilie.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Good morning or good afternoon everybody. It is Friday, 01/16/2026. You are watching the Committee on General and Housing. This afternoon we're going to introduce and have some walkthroughs and in one case I believe we'll see a boat. So, I'm going to turn it over to our esteemed Legislative Counsel for particularly for labor issues, Sophie Zatney.

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: Good afternoon. I'm Sophie Zatney for the Office of Legislative Council, and I'm just waiting to pull up the bills, because my understanding is you don't have those. Give me one second. Are we going in numerical order?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah, we're going to start with five thirty two. Great.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: That would be easier

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: for me. Me too. That's how they're listed on our webpage too. They're linked up. This

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: is the mandatory retirement bill, and it's the one at the request of legislative counsel that I introduced and know nothing about. How about that for Honesty Online?

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: There we go.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: You know what, I'm going to ask Leonora to act as our committee clerk in the absence of Mary. Okay, happy to. Because this one is one we may bring to a vote.

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: This is a pretty straightforward bill. Goal here would be to repeal a statutory provision that we currently have in the Fair Employment Practices Act that permits the mandatory retirement of college professors at age 70 years of age, which has actually been illegal at the federal level since 1994 under the American Age Discrimination Act. So it's seen on our statute books, it's periodically been tweaked you know, through technical corrections, like fixing the language or whatever, which suggests that it's actually a real bill that, you know, that's in force. And I did look and see, and it's sort of cited as being, an active girl. So I think it's misleading to people to think that actually it's in effect. So my request to the chair was to simply go ahead and repeal it. So yeah, this was a language, it used to be under the Age Discrimination and Employment Act at the federal level, it used to be that there were a

[Leonora Dodge (Member; acting as clerk)]: lot of

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: mandatory retirement ages and as time's gone on and people have figured out that just because you're older doesn't necessarily mean you can't do certain things, a lot of those restrictions have been lifted. And this was one that was passed in 1986 but didn't go into effect until 1994. Happy to answer any questions that folks may have. Joe had a good question.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: I answered my own question.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Well, other words, it's statutory, federal prohibition is statutory. Is there any constitutional law on this

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: subject? Under the federal law. So again, it's this committee. Generally on employment issues, the federal law sets the floor for things and then states be more permissive, more generous above that. So because the federal law would preempt this statute, there's a direct conflict. It wouldn't work. Yeah, there's nothing specific. I don't think constitution ally it's

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: There's no judge made law that says that age discrimination is, that retirement ages as a general matter are discriminatory and prohibited.

[Leonora Dodge (Member; acting as clerk)]: Well,

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: generally you can't discriminate on the basis of age. You can't say, I'm picking a younger candidate because you're old and you wouldn't understand the technology or you haven't got new ideas or whatever stereotype you might come up with. There are still some retirement ages, so for example in law enforcement there are retirement ages, being a commercial pilot there are retirement ages. So where there's science that supports with age, your ability to see that particular position decreases, then those are supported. But for college professors, that's not the case. What actually happened was in 1986, there was a fight about this, and the EEOC was actually asked to do a study, a survey on the cognitive decline of college professors, and they never did it. So the amendment went into effect in 1994.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: There's a proficiency in law

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: enforcement. Right, so there are some areas where you can, there are some narrow exceptions to the general rule that you can't have mandatory retirement taking. Statutory exceptions. Right.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: That was my question earlier, and it's called a bona fide occupational qualification. And it's generally around public safety.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possibly Elizabeth Burrows)]: Okay. So, I mean, is, it looks specific to tenured faculty. It is so what do they still have a mechanism or, you know

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: This was just allowing this was just allowing employers to require tenured faculty to retire at the age of 70, because otherwise with tenure it's sort of a job for life. So this was a commissive statute.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possibly Elizabeth Burrows)]: Is Could there still some provisions? So if somebody reaches 98 and their student, you know, don't wanna, no, I can't remember. Somebody is beyond their ability to do the job well, do they still have some what it means to

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: Right, if you have job performance issues then obviously you can do something. It just can't be you're 70 left or you're out. Right, gotcha. You you could be a really smart 90 year old.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possibly Elizabeth Burrows)]: Yep, make some.

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: But if you start losing your faculties and your performance goes down, then for performance reasons, can see that this is at any age. Pretty much, right.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So, it's now called, what did

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: you say, bona fide occupational what? Bona fide occupational qualification, both. The effort.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: That's cops, firefighters, etcetera.

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: Right, and there are some specific provisions around that.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Oh, are specific occupations called out in federal law?

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: Right, and unstable. I believe we have one for law enforcement. Yeah,

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: that's why I was asking, because we have one here for the chief of police, and I was like, wait a minute. Because I was like, why, I don't understand how that works. But now that you say that it's because, I guess I never thought of it in that capacity on the type of job having to do with the age decline and the qualifications, because I was under the impression, I was like, you would want someone with more experience to be in a leadership role, but I guess when you put it in that capacity, it makes

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: sense. Yeah, things like commercial pilots, know, just your vision isn't just, I mean, you know, just we all know, right? At a good age there is some deficits, but some maybe aren't critical to your job performance, but some are. Looks like Emily.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Hi. Hey. Just a question. This it looks like does this this apply to or adjunct professors or this is just

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: No. This the the statute specifically is for tenured professors because, again, otherwise, there's no yeah. I'm sure the thought was, you know, we have these people that have tenure for life. You know? Right. We should be

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: able True. True. Right. Yeah. Because I know some magic professors that are real old. Yeah. They're they're still good. They're still alright.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Right. Yeah.

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: This was really just permissive. It was just allowing people to have a mandatory retirement policy. But again, that's been not permitted under federal law since 1994.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Well, glad that we're closing that loophole then.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Is there any, any questions by the committee? I think given the simplicity of this, it might be good just to get it out. Is there a can I guess I'll I'll move

[Unidentified Committee Member (possibly Elizabeth Burrows)]: up here?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah. Go ahead.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: Prior to that. Yeah. I knowing that this is as simple as it is, just curious if people wanna use their day of voting. Let's get three minutes.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Not really.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: That's kinda my thought.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Thanks, Joe. I thought of that earlier this afternoon. I was like, dang it. But it is I guess if I have to, I have to.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: No. You don't. You don't have to.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: We can delay the vote.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Well, we can either delay the votes or we've got six of us here.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Right. But they might not wanna be reflected as not having three, four, five.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Oh, right. Because I am technically here. Maybe could we vote Tuesday early morning or something?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay. Is that cool? Absolutely. Thanks, Joe. Well, yeah,

[Unidentified Committee Member (possibly Elizabeth Burrows)]: it's a

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: six zero five.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. Snap.

[Rep. Chris Taylor (Guest, Milton)]: I'm gonna

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: do the best of luck.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Thanks, Joe.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Would be pretty.

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: Think Joe should report this bill.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: That's right. I have to assign it to somebody to report, Joe.

[Rep. Chris Taylor (Guest, Milton)]: You haven't voted yet. He hasn't passed his order. Yeah. I haven't saw him.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Oh, and now I vote against it.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possibly Gayle Pezzo)]: Is it legal for us to vote against it if it's not like,

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: if

[Unidentified Committee Member (possibly Gayle Pezzo)]: the statute is illegal, essentially, can we

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: vote against it? Yeah. Of course

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: you can.

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: We should.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Taken away in cuts.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I'll tell you what. Would you let's just calendar it for when we think

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: Tuesday after

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: the Emily, do you have any any time you won't be here that you can anticipate now? Or Debbie?

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: No. No. I'm I'm back, next week, all the days, so whatever.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay, Debbie, do you have any sense, Debbie, when you might want to actually be back in person?

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: A lot has to do with PT, because they haven't really taught me how to use the you know, PT has to teach me how to use the walker with my walking boot. Yeah. So, you know, once, once that happens, I see myself coming more often to committee. Yeah. But it's not gonna happen Tuesday.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I don't think yeah. I I think we'll schedule it. Let's schedule it for, like, Friday or something. And and if she isn't here, we can postpone it even further.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Well, I'm I'm trying to be there on Friday. I'm I'm presenting. Right? The twenty second. Am I presenting? Am I on the agenda? Thursday. Oh, that's Thursday?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah. But we'll work at we'll work around your schedule. Okay? We can move things around. And I think I hate to see you use your vote, your remote vote for this kind of a bill. It's nothing. So That's

[Unidentified Committee Member (possibly Elizabeth Burrows)]: a good question.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: No offense against your bill, by the way.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: You

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: asked me just to walk through on H548, which represents the case, as the sponsor, did an introduction to. And this is to create a position in the Vermont Labor Relations Office to create a mediator position that would serve public and private sector collective bargaining units. And I did want to just let this committee know this is a short form, but there is language in S-one 173 in front of Senate Economic Development that fleshes this out more, that has the statutory language and an appropriation in it. So,

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I'm sure you're familiar with S 173.

[Leonora Dodge (Member; acting as clerk)]: Yes.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: You wanna tell us about what's in this, what's using 173 as a guide, what's involved here?

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: So I'm gonna stop sharing that. S one seventy three has other stuff in it as well, but it also includes communication.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: By the way, it's Chris Taylor. Okay.

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: Apologies for the fast forward here.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Also, if you can make it a little bigger, you can get there.

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: Is that big enough?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Just a little bigger would be great, yeah, thank you.

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: Okay, so this would provide, this is in the State Employee Labor Relations Act, and this would just add into a section in that act that talks about the Vermont Labor Relations Board and how it's set up and organized. So this would provide, again, that the Secretary of Administration would give additional space to the Vermont Labor Relations Board if they had a position in. As you may know, the Vermont Labor Relations Board only has two positions. One is the full time executive director and the other is a part time clerk. So it's a very lean and mean operation. So this would add in a mediator position to provide free mediation services to both public and private sector, collective bargaining units and employers once they reach impasse and collective bargaining. And then it has the appropriation, would be to add a full time permanent position, and then the current placeholder amount for that is $115,000 to cover the salary and benefits. Judith Dillon, who's the Executive Director of the Vermont Labor Relations Board, testified yesterday that if they do need additional space, that would be an added cost, because I guess they have to pay the agency of administration for the space that they use. The Vermont Labor Relations Board is an independent agency within state government. So that's the overview. Does this contemplate that this would be an employee as opposed to an Yes, independent it contemplates an employee, and I can So where this is coming from, I know you've asked me to come in next week to talk about things that have happened at the federal level that are impacting Vermont labor and employment issues. The Federal Mediation Conciliation Service, FFCS, is a small federal independent agency that provides mediation and conciliation services to private sector employees covered by the National Labor Relations Act. And if you remember from last session, we have seven state labor relations acts, so they're not covered by the federal National Labor Relations Act. We have seven public sector primarily acts here in Vermont, but the FMCS out of the Albany office for many years, I don't know how many years, as long as I'm aware, been providing free mediation services to unions and employers in Vermont, including those covered by state statutes. And last March, through an executive order, the agency was, the Federal Mediation and Reconciliation Service was cut dramatically by 95%. So they went from around 143 full time national mediators down to about four zero five. So there have been court cases, injunctions, etcetera, around that, and the agency is being built back up again. But providing free mediation services to public sector employees is not part of the FMCS's statutory obligation under federal law. So I would anticipate that even if the FMCS is able to be rebuilt, which again, I'm not entirely sure that will happen, but if it does, my anticipation is that they would be restricted to what they're statutorily required to do by federal law, and that would not include providing this free mediation service to public sector employees and labor unions here in Vermont. You can certainly have testimony, folks come in to talk about the value of having that free mediation service. Mediation is expensive. Having the free service has been enormously valuable to both parties, because I would anticipate you would hear testimony on both sides saying how valuable having that free mediation service is, having a neutral party that can come in when you've reached an impasse or you're just struggling in a negotiation. And even if you don't always resolve a dispute through the mediation, what often happens is you may start with 12 contentious issues and with a mediator you can get it down to two issues. And that really helps alleviate the workload on the Vermont Labor Relations Board, again, just as one and a half employees, it means that everything doesn't land up on their plate where they've then got to have hearings, etcetera, because the parties aren't able to resolve their bargaining issues. So this what's proposed in S-one 173 is that the mediation service would be provided to private sector employees as well, so not just those covered by our seven public labor relations acts, but also private sector employees here in Vermont. So for example, the UVM Medical Center and the nurses, they bargain, they run into issues, this would provide, and again, before the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service would be involved in trying to resolve that dispute. So this would also be something that would benefit all bargaining units within Vermont, not just public sector. Right now, under the Municipal Employee Labor Relations Act, if they reach in parts and need a mediator, they go to the Department of Labor under the statute, and the Department of Labor then usually reaches out to the Vermont Labor Relations Board and says, Do you have any mediators we can refer them to? So I think they've also been going, getting assistance from the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service too, but Judith Dillon didn't have those numbers yesterday that she mentioned.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: I just want to clarify So

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: even if the federal service is rebuilt, you think it will apply only to private sector employees?

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: Right, because they're under the federal law, the National Labor Relations Act, that covers private sector employees, it does not cover public sector employees.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Right, which is why we have our seven different statutes in all their glory.

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: I would add that when Judith Dillon testified yesterday, she also said that she was aware that for the upcoming fiscal year budget for the FMCS, it's significantly smaller. And so she seemed pessimistic that it would even be rebuilt enough to support the public sector employees as well. But there has been litigation around it. The Southern District Of New York at the December reversed a policy that FMCS had put in place where they were only going to help very large employers and healthcare employers. They weren't going to help smaller employers. So that got reversed by the Southern District in New York. So again, it's very much in flux. And in terms of the looking at a crystal ball, what might happen, Again, this has been a very valuable service and the free is really important because it means people are willing to involve a mediator much earlier on than otherwise they would.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: But the mediator that's being contemplated in this bill would be available to both public and both public, which are not covered, but also private. Private, which are covered. So if it's rebuilt, would it be duplicative?

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: Potentially, but it's just not clear when that will happen. I will say the other piece, and this is just from my personal knowledge, is there was a lot of credibility that was given to the FMCS mediators by both sides. Again, was a huge amount of trust put in the mediators and because they were basically fired, those that have a lot of experience and knowledge about Lamont have left and taken other positions. So even if FMCS, the office is restaffed, you've still lost that expertise that they had on Vermont. So this would enable the Vermont Labor Relations Board to have a resource that's here in the state that can become familiar with the employers and the employees here. Right, you were saying one thing that I just, you said that

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: municipal labor relations under that Act,

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: If what happens to the Department of they impasse, they've, so normally if under the other Acts, if you get to a point of an impasse and collect some bargaining, you reach out to the Vermont Labor Relations Board and you say we've kidn't impasse, please would you appoint a mediator? And typically what happens, and this is what Judith Dillon testified to yesterday, typically what happens is the parties will say we've reached impasse, please would you appoint this person from the FMCS as our mediator? But for whatever reason, and I don't know the historical reason why, but under Municipal Employee Relations Act, if they hit impasse, instead of reaching out to the Labor Relations Board, they reach out to the Department of Labor.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Which in turn does what? Reaches out

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: to is the what? Relations Dylan said, they then reach out to the Labor Relations Board to say, do you have list of mediators, who would you recommend? So that's not written in statute, that's just of how they've done it.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Any other questions?

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, can I ask, do you have a sense generally when there is a loss of finding a mediator, whether one side ends up being more empowered than another? Does it create an imbalance that just creates awful impasses or does the scale end up getting fit in one direction or another? I'm not aware of it forcing an impasse that way. Typically what would happen in a mediator position is that if you were paying, the parties would typically just split the costs fiftyfifty and the expenses that are related with it. So both parties would equally bear the cost of it. Right, but historically, when you're trying to reach, when these two sides have conflicting goals, if the employer versus employees, does it create an imbalance to no longer have a mediator who is

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: a third party that can, is it?

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: I think it's mutually beneficial for both parties to, once you've reached the end of the process because the parties have gotten to a point where they just can't make progress on their own and sometimes they're still having collaborative, helpful conversations, but it's just having that additional person that can then work with each side to explore some possibilities. So often mediators will do proposals, what if the other side were to come in and suggest something like this, would that be of interest? And so they can do things that the parties themselves can't do without sort of displaying weakness or a vulnerability in a particular way. So it's a way to explore possible resolutions, but going through a third party.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: But both sides have to request Under this bill, would both sides have to request the mediation?

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: This just provides that when they reach so when you reach impasse both sides have agreed that they're not able

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: to. So it's not as if one side can say, well, we've reached impasse and therefore a mediator is signed. You have to have both. The other saying, no, actually we haven't, I don't want a mediator.

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: This doesn't change that, this doesn't have any impact on the current statute regarding

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: It's not like the situation where if you, there's a formal declaration of impasse and a special master is appointed, that's a different process, right?

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, so my understanding is that impasse at the federal level under the National Labor Relations Act is a much more significant thing, sort of relations have completely broken down, the parties can't communicate. That's not the way it functions under our labor relations statutes here in Vermont. Often they'll be, the parties can still be negotiating and be like, all right, we can't agree on this one issue, so let's go ahead and get a mediator's schedule, of everyone's schedule, let's see if we can get them scheduled for three weeks time when we next meet to talk about that issue. So it's not like there's been a complete breakdown. So usually it's a mutual benefit to both parties, we've reached good luck on this particular issue, we can still talk about other issues, but let's see if we can get a mediator to help us get over the, you know, this particular issue and move forward. If

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: I may, I don't know if you could see my hand.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: No. Go ahead. It's you know what? It's hard to see your hand, so just

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: interrupt like this. Thought. So I'll just say something. Stop. Sorry. Sophie answered rep Dodge's question perfectly. I didn't know if that was something that she could answer, but it seems like you did. I was just gonna reiterate that point and and that this is as I I I forgot. I'm also a cosponsor of this bill. But rep Casey pointed out yesterday that that this is really for both both parties, and it's it's really to help. You know, I I think mediation is is really can be beneficial and can save time and money in another in other ways. So but, yes, it is for both parties beneficial and equal. But yeah, Sophie answered. I had my hand up before, but Sophie answered it perfectly. Rebdog's Thank you.

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: I was just

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: gonna say that it just,

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: I feel like when we create this kind of position, I

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: just think about the boom that it, you know, like an interesting, creative, accomplished individual is going to have a role to play

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: when we come to conflict. I think this is in the public interest.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: One of the things I like about this is that the Labor Relations Board's lack of staff is something that we've heard about over the last couple of years, and there are several bills that are on our wall, which are basically of workarounds, proposing that people can do things outside of the Labor Relations Board by contract rather than through it solely because of the delays and the assertion that they can't keep up, and it seems to me this bill is and we haven't been very effective in well, let's put it this way, efforts to increase the staff size have not been successful. So it seems to me this is one way of perhaps lightening their load indirectly through hiring a mediator.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. I think that's the intent.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Any other questions about five forty eight before we move on?

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Yeah. Procedural. So given that 173 is in play, where does that lead five forty eight?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: What we would have to do, and we can do it if we want now. Yeah. We can When we have a short form bill, and someone correct me if I'm wrong, the step, if we wanted to have a bill, we have two ways to go. One is we can do nothing, leave it on the wall and wait for 173 to come across, or we can mark it up ourselves, and the way we would do that is we would instruct our legislative council to create the bill for us, correct? So, and I don't think we even need to do that by motion, we just need to do it by sense of the body, is that correct?

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: My understanding is, yeah, the committee votes to have it move forward, so I think

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: We would have to vote.

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: Formally it needs to be, but, yes, Well, that

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: we would have can we do it by straw poll? We can't we just do it by sense of the committee?

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Yeah. It doesn't have request.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I don't want her to have to use a vote.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. Oh, it it's not that type of vote. It's not it's not yeah. It's not like an official vote with the with the clerk. It's just a a hand of committee, to take it off the wall. And, again, that doesn't mean we're gonna work on it even more, but it means then we're going to the next phase.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: I Good. Having you insert that link.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay. So what is the sense of the committee? Should we ask Sophie to turn this into a bill?

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: Can I comment without voting yet? I'm trying to think of whether this is just busy work for you or whether there's that like if the Senate is already introducing it as a long form, what's the benefit of us creating it as a long form too? That we don't know whether it'll make it across, make it out, etcetera. This might be the least

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: The other bill. Other the issues or controversial

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, still has other pieces and it might have other pieces It might be more controversial. Yeah, so this would be just a standalone piece as far as, I mean, the amount of additional work is minimal because I would really essentially have take pieces right out of that though. Okay, yeah, then I'm totally well done.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah, well done.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Gosh, we might get stepped in.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: What about the other members of the committee? How do you feel about it? Should we ask Sophie to proceed to turn this into a long form bill that we would then take up?

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Well, we don't even necessarily have to take it up, but at least then it's in play more than

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: The testimony.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Right. It it really is just another step. And I I will shock the committee that I would like to do that.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possibly Elizabeth Burrows)]: It's not likely to be

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: 80 pages, obviously.

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: It'll be fractionally longer than four pages. Maybe two pages.

[Leonora Dodge (Member; acting as clerk)]: Tom will never vote for

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: it if it's shorter than 80 pages. I'm not sure I can spend it out that long. Other

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: members of the committee, how do you feel about it?

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: Take the next steps.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Debbie? Take the take the next steps.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Go. What's your feeling about it?

[Unidentified Committee Member (possibly Elizabeth Burrows)]: Whatever the committee would like.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay. I think your the consensus is that you should say whatever the committee would like, and since the committee apparently would like it, you should do it. Okay. So, we're going to move to a bill, the long form bill. Five forty eight.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: It keeps its number, right?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah.

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: Okay.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Chris? Maybe we should go to six sixty one since Chris is here, and then we'll come back to How's that? I hate to make him sit here. We'll come back Whatever to

[Rep. Chris Taylor (Guest, Milton)]: you all want to do.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Get up there, take a seat. We'll both of you.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: We thought all of Milton was going to come.

[Rep. Chris Taylor (Guest, Milton)]: Well, you know, I can't coordinate them when I'm in Milton, I definitely can't coordinate them when I'm here.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay, so Milk and Cola.

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: Oh, you want me to put it up on the screen for you?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah, yeah, and I think Chris? Yes. This bill, you haven't been here with this bill, right? No. Okay. So we're gonna introduce it and then do a walkthrough. Okay. That's fine. It's been the policy of our committee, we introduce every bill that comes in. Absolutely. But also, we thought that then this was the next step usually, there's a lot of bills, not a lot, but a good number of bills that are introduced here that we don't do walkthroughs, but we felt with this bill we should move to a walkthrough as well. So, why don't you tell us about your thoughts about this bill, why you did it, anything you want to in just a brief introduction.

[Rep. Chris Taylor (Guest, Milton)]: Yeah, sounds good. Thank you. First of thank you for having me here today. Appreciate your time. H661 makes two straightforward updates to Vermont's presumptive cancer statute for fire First, it asks cancers of the larynx, pharynx and trachea to the existing presumptive cancer list. Lung cancer is already included in statute. These additional cancers affect tissues that are part of the same respiratory pathway and are exposed to the same smoke carcinogens and toxic byproducts firefighters encounter on the job. From a logical standpoint, it makes sense that contaminants capable of causing lung cancer would also impact other organs along that same pathway. This change brings the statute into better alignment with how exposure actually occurs in the field. Second, the bill removes the requirement that a firefighter be under the age of 65 in order for cancer to be presumed work related. That age cap appears arbitrary. Firefighters do not stop carrying the effects of their occupational exposure when they turn 65. And cancers related to that exposure may not present until years later. Excuse me. Maintaining an age cutoff risks denying the coverage based solely on when a diagnosis occurs rather than whether the disease is connected to the service. Importantly, this bill does not remove the existing safeguard that limits eligibility to cancers diagnosed within ten years of a firefighter's last injured exposure. That requirement remains in place and continues to provide a reasonable and defensible connection between employment and illness. I appreciate the ability to introduce H661 and hope that it can be moved forward to better support those who risk their health to keep us safe. Thank you.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Questions for Chris before we go through a walkthrough, please.

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: Very, very briefly, did this come from a

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: constituent or lived experience from

[Leonora Dodge (Member; acting as clerk)]: some of the folks?

[Rep. Chris Taylor (Guest, Milton)]: Unfortunately our town has been affected, our fire department has been affected greatly by cancer diagnosis in the last several years. This change came between conversations with myself and our chief of fire department in alignment with what's happened in our town up at the thirty seven years.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: What is it? You mentioned the word presumptive. How does this work? In other words, it's a question of whether it was caused by

[Rep. Chris Taylor (Guest, Milton)]: Correct, and you might have a better Yes.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay, alright, we'll wait till they walk through.

[Rep. Chris Taylor (Guest, Milton)]: But yes, it's presumed to have been caused by their job.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay, Debbie, and then Emilie.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: My question has to do with, is this generational? Like, is it showing up in their offspring Or is it isolated just to that one generation?

[Rep. Chris Taylor (Guest, Milton)]: I'm personally unaware of if it's generational or not.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Thank you.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yes, Emilie.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Hi, thank you so much for bringing this bill forward. I really support it and I hope we take it up. This may be a question for for Sophie, but is this for since we do have a lot of various firefighter bills in our committee, this for volunteer firefighters or folks who are full time firefighters?

[Rep. Chris Taylor (Guest, Milton)]: I don't think it makes a I don't think it designates.

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: It's for workers' compensation. Okay. Employed by or who volunteer for the department online as

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: well as on page three.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: But it's compensation. Right? So

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Okay. Well, we may wanna discuss that. My dad was a volunteer firefighter growing up, and I saw the amazing work that he did, but maybe something to talk about more. Thank you so much though for bringing this forward.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Thanks Chris. Sophie, you want to do a little walkthrough? Chris, you can stay there if you want to get out of here.

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: Safe drive.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: See you guys. Take make sure your father stays in line and don't let him speed.

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: So again, Representative Taylor did an excellent job, the two key things that this bill does. So I did wanna just add

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Set the stage regulatorily, what are we

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: Right, so this is in the workers' compensation statute, so the question about generational, this is dealing with individuals that So are working, this is a workers' compensation. And then you had asked about the presumption. And I will just say the definitions are incredibly lengthy in the workers' compensation statute, but the one dealing specifically with firefighters is that because scientifically firefighters are diagnosed with cancer and die from cancer at a higher rate than the general population, that's built into our workers compensation statute a presumption that if you develop certain types of cancer while you are a firefighter or within a certain period of time of being a firefighter, that that then is a compensable workers' compensation injury. So it just expedites the workers' compensation process. Normally, you have cancer in a different situation, you'd have to establish the causal connection between your work and the cancer. So again, as representative Taylor explained, what this is doing is, we'll talk about the 65 year old thing first of all. So just going through, it says who dies or has a disability from a cancer listed in subject three, which we'll get to, firefighters will be presumed to have had the cancer as a result of exposure to conditions of the lung with duty unless it's shown by a preponderance of the evidence that the cancer was not caused by non service connected risk factors or non service connected exposure. But the cancer was caused by non service connectedness. Unless it's shown, so unless

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Right, later on it says smoking. Right, so

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: there are some guardrails around this. It's not just any firefighter that has any cancer, that's a workers' comp injury, right? There are some guardrails.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: It's gotta be caused by work.

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: But this gives a presumption. So then the burden is gonna be on the employer or the carrier to establish that, yeah, there's no correlation between this cancer and the work. So again, the firefighter has undergone initial and subsequent cancer screening evaluations before or while becoming a firefighter and there was no evidence of cancer. So it's not somebody that already has a cancer becomes a firefighter. So we're just checking that and then the firefighter was engaged in firefighting duties over a period of at least five years in Vermont prior to the diagnosis. And then this is the guardrail that's being removed, which is the firefighters under the age of 65 years, right, at the time of diagnosis. And then it says, as representative Dodge just noted, the presumption does not apply to any firefighter who's used tobacco products at any time within ten years of the date of diagnosis. And then it goes through the different kinds of cancer and again, I did just a very quick bit of research, very rapid, as I was just asked this morning about this bill. So one of the issues, the medical studies that are starting to come out is, I think as representative Taylor indicated, but larynx, pharynx and trachea, those are all respiratory issues and there's a lot more synthetic products in fires and so they're just much more likely to be cancer causing agents right now. So again, I didn't do a deep dive on all the medical research or anything, but again, I think the language that was used was it's sort of part of the respiratory tract. And again, you have to be diagnosed with the cancer within ten years of your last active date of employment as a firefighter, and then there's some other provisions in here about maintaining records, etc. So those are the two main features to Do firefighters have a maximum age paid firefighters? That is a good question, don't know off the top of my head, I can check. Because if that was recently, if that was removed, is that kind of the logic too, I mean, that you could be older, you could be or what, in any case.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: We'll have to check. I would be surprised if there was an age limit for a volunteer firefighter.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: You would be surprised? Yeah. To volunteer there should be no age limit in other words. Well, I'm just guessing. Or guessing. How

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: do they normally prove or disprove that you are not a smoker? And do vapes, I don't know, there's all kinds of tobacco products that are not inhaled or I don't know how that goes. I would assume there's questionnaires that you complete and if you lied on it then there's a penalty if you've lied on it. There are, I think there's either blood or urine tests you can do to see if people have used tobacco.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: They're not from ten years, but

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: Probably is that what you not from ten years ago, but yeah, I mean just like anything, right? So I don't know exactly how that would work.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possibly Elizabeth Burrows)]: Preponderance of evidence has to indicate a certain bulk of, just one, can't be just one possibility, it has to be substantial.

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: I mean if your crewmates all know you're out of back smoking, at the time you're off

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: duty, Always weren't able to get life insurance, or your life insurance was very expensive because you were a smoker. I went, no, I'm not a smoker.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah, right. I'm not familiar with workers compensation law very much, I mean the practice of it, but from what you've said, assume that compensation depends on your proving that there's a nexus between the work and the illness. How do people establish? Is this usually a major part of the litigation where people are, you know, where employers are fighting back and saying no, you just had it anyway?

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: I think it depends on what the nature of the injury is, and there are some injuries that are expensive to treat, that you're going to have an employer that's going to push back if they think it's questionable as to whether there's linkage. So, you know, yeah, it depends. I mean, sometimes it's pretty straightforward and it's just a question of how long is it going to take for you to have the shoulder surgery and get back to work or whatever it may be, but these kinds of things where there cancers or other kinds of diseases that are affected, that are caused more by environmental factors and stuff, I think are just a lot more challenging. And again, employers may dispute them and then you have to get into the medical evidence and all the rest of it. That's why I think that you have the presumption here is, so you don't have to fight about it. If you've got lung cancer, you don't smoke, you've been a firefighter, we're not gonna quibble about it.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possibly Elizabeth Burrows)]: Occupational illnesses would include things like carpal tunnel, it doesn't just happen on a Wednesday afternoon, oh look, you've got it, you're tight. Back conditions like that are accrued over time. So this would be similar to other situations where it was kind of already where it looks at. And I can imagine some insurance carriers not allowed to cover as much as employers.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Any other questions by members of the committee of either Sophie or Chris?

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Yes? I'm going to guess, obviously this is now casting a broader net of people that will be covered, so I'm just curious whether I think it's great that we do that. I'm curious whether, do you know the history of that sixty five year mark? Is that very common in other statutes?

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: I don't know, can certainly look and see if I can give you more insight on that as to why the sixty five came in. Again, it has that other language that it has to be within ten years, so I think that's a valid point that, know, because it's when you're diagnosed, I mean, again, I'd just be speculating, but maybe you're more likely to be diagnosed with cancer as an older person than another person, so, but I don't know the details of why

[Unidentified Committee Member (possibly Elizabeth Burrows)]: it was. It's likely you'd diagnosed after you were retired.

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, yeah.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Well, that's, now, if we get rid of that, that's what we're saying, is that we're now activating We're

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: in place the ten years. Right. Okay. I just have a question.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: So, this this would it's just like any other

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Debbie, I see you, but go on.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: I just want to Oh, I'm sorry,

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: did I

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: say No, no, no, you were first. Go

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: ahead. Oh,

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: you guys keep the queue. So this is just like, just adding to the already pre existing thing. So there wouldn't be any insurance implications that were like, it would, I don't, I'm just, are there any possibilities of unintended consequences that could kick back on firefighters by adding, you know what I mean? Like, a way that there could be a negative impact, looking for unintended consequences that could backfire?

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: I don't think there would be any on the firefighters themselves. Not

[Rep. Chris Taylor (Guest, Milton)]: on fire burns or something.

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: Right, I mean, to the extent for the employers that are paying for the workers compensation, they may have to pay more for that. So there would be a, to the extent, again, don't know And it

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: may raise their premium Right, or mean, might, if

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: we take this up and we have testimony we might want to get, I don't know, Megan Sullivan or someone from Yeah, the let's

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: see what the numbers were.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Well, someone from the chamber.

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: J. P. Fehan usually is the one that testified. I'm actually curious why the bill is here because usually Marcus' compensation over down the hall, but usually Jamie Veehan is the one who actually applies on the behalf of Carrie.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Why was it referred to us?

[Rep. Chris Taylor (Guest, Milton)]: I had a little bit of a question on that in my head as well, but I don't know how to offer it, so

[Unidentified Committee Member (possibly Elizabeth Burrows)]: I don't know what to Don't they do, do workers' comp next door? I'm really a labors thing, is it because it's specific to Firefighters?

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: I mean it is workers' compensation, and usually workers' compensation kind of the amateur standard.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay, well we'll have to I don't mind Art having to deal with it. I'll ask Marcotte whether there's any problem if we just do it. Debbie?

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: I mean, cancers grow at different rates, obviously. And, I mean, even ten years, I mean, I feel like some cancers just take a long time to show their ugly heads, so to speak.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: I I feel oh, sorry. I feel

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: like Go ahead.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: No. I was

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: just gonna say I feel like if we take up the bill, these are some of the questions that we could get into when but with a you know, we're kinda getting a little weedy.

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. Sorry about that. Okay. My bad.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: No. No. I'm just for the sake of not that I'm there, but for the sake of time and Chris' Yeah.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: No. I I would like to take it up.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay. Well, we'll let's let me if the committee's okay, one piece of info, I mean, we'll see whether we're gonna take it up, but first of all, I'll ask whether it really jurisdictionally belongs over there, okay? In which case, I'll do what I did yesterday, I'll just get up on the floor and request that it be moved over. By the way, just so you know, the way that works is I go to the clerk, I

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: say I don't think they

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: should be with us, I think it should well, first of all, I talk to Marc the committee that's gonna be on the receiving end. We don't want them saying standing up saying, no way. I talk to Betsy Anne and get her to agree, and then I tell either Jill or Connor, because you know how Jill repeats when I get up and say that I'd like to move that the committee on general and housing be relieved of H whatever and that the same be assigned to she already has that up on her script so that she can repeat it. So, I will let you know what I found out when I talked to Marc Okay. Thank you, Chris. I mean, if you'd like to sit around here and watch us instead of going

[Rep. Chris Taylor (Guest, Milton)]: I'm down to sure you deal with a lot of very interesting things, but I think I should probably

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So now we're at age five fifty two, I think, right? Yep.

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: The person to introduce it. Did she leave?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yep. No. She's still there.

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: How can you tell? She's not? Krasnow? How can you tell?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Oh. I

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: can't. It's weird. I can't like, the screen changed.

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: Now you replaced Debbie.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah. Do know what it is? Oh. Oh, it's it's on

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: speaking. That's the display.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Can you change it?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Sure. Can we change it to, like

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: To all or gallery or something like that?

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: For some reason, it changed completely on my end. Okay. That's Alright.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Well, that's better because until we put up the

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: because once you share

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay. So

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: I wasn't I'm sorry.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: 52. This is a walk through. It has been introduced. However, if you would you like to say anything, Emilie, about

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. I'm not gonna give a formal introduction because I think the walk through will speak for it. And it was short notice, so I didn't prepare an eloquent intro. But from my own mind and heart on the fly, folks may remember last year we did worked on the unpaid leave expansion, which added folks with nontraditional family structures, etcetera, that bill that was now passed into law. Yay. It came to my attention from some folks that so when the bill went, I call it downstairs to the Senate, they added a group of folks that were originally left out, which was pilots. And it came to the attention of some folks, sometimes after bills become law, things rise that we didn't know about. In addition to the pilots, it is my understanding, and so if you will get into it, that teachers were also left out. So I don't know the full extent, so I'm looking forward to hearing the walk through and can answer but that's the context that it was brought to my attention that after the bill became law, another group of folks was unintentionally left out like the pilots we added in or the senate added in. So that's what I've heard, and the teachers are not happy with that, obviously. And do we have a

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: We do, ma'am. We have a quorum. Yes. We do.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: So that's my pull together quick intro and all I know at this point. So I put forward the bill so we could at least have this discussion and hear more if we do decide to take it up from the folks that have been impacted. Sophie, you want to take it away and explain the context again? I'm a

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: little mystified myself. I remember we had

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: a screening pilots, but I don't know

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: the reason.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possibly Elizabeth Burrows)]: I thought the bill just did include non traditional

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah, I'm kind of surprised that the bill does why there's a list in the bill. I assume that the bill just covered, I don't know, everybody. With

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: H. Four sixty one, which was the bill that you had last time on parental and family leave, statute, It started in this committee, it went over to the Senate and the Senate made a couple of changes. One of the changes when it got to the Senate was there was a request by one of the unions that represents flight crews that flight crews be included. So flight crews, because they work very, their hours are controlled at the federal level, because I'm sure you've had those situations where you're at the airport and the flight's delayed and it's delayed and they're like, oh, I'm sorry, the crew timed out, so your flight's not going tonight. So there are very strict rules around how many hours flight crew can work. So there is a special carve out for them at the federal level, under the Federal Medical and Family Leave Act that specifically addresses addresses flight crew and specifically includes them because they otherwise wouldn't meet the definition of, I think it's twelve fifty hours a year, I don't have them all off the top of my head, yes, at least twelve fifty hours of service during a twelve period. And so airline flight crew have a special service requirement so that they qualify after the FMLA. So they came to the Senate and said, we're covered by the FMLA, we're not covered currently under the price on family leave act, we'd like to be. Could you add in a reference to the Family Medical Leave Act, sorry, to the State Act, sort of referencing the federal act to say that if we meet the federal requirements for FMLA, then we would meet the state requirements for the PFLA. So that happened and now my understanding again from what representative Krasnow just said is the same question came up around teachers because teachers don't teach twelve months a year, their schedule is different. They also have special language under the federal law and so the request was could that reference and I'll just blister Hicks, it's a very small change, could this add in the reference to teachers under the federal law and so if they qualify under the federal law, they would then automatically qualify under the state law. So what the change proposed here is that reference to the code of federal regulations that passed in Act 32, I went ahead and added airline flight crew, people would think, what are all these numbers in here? They would know what they were related to. And then it would add in 29 CFR section eight twenty five dot 110 C3 full time teachers and then the definition of what a full time teacher is under federal law, and so they would now be eligible to be covered under the state parental and family leave act, which they were not previously, but they were covered under the federal act and they're asking could they be covered under the state act.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Please.

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: Is in that definition of teachers, I'm guessing it does not include like other staff that

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Sara educators or cafeteria workers or any

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: of the other staff that work

[Leonora Dodge (Member; acting as clerk)]: So

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: the definition of a teacher is a teacher or employee employed in an instructional capacity or instructional employee means an employee, a lot of employees, employed principally in an instructional capacity by an educational agency or school whose principal function is to teach and instruct students in a class, a small group or an individual setting and includes athletic coaches, driving instructors and special education assistants, such as signers for the hearing impaired. The term does not include teacher assistants or aides who do not have as their principal function actual teaching or instructing, nor auxiliary personnel such as counselors, psychologists, curriculum specialists, cafeteria workers, maintenance workers, bus drivers, or other primarily non instructional employees. Don't like So that's the general definition. Yeah. Well Yep. Yep.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So I'm assuming

[Unidentified Committee Member (possibly Elizabeth Burrows)]: I would assume that if they're not teachers that they are already under other labor law, that our bill would probably it has already captured. It sounds like we're looking for the stragglers that are covered by

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: because they wouldn't

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: be twelve month employees, that's why teachers and pilots don't qualify. Yeah,

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: you better let's go back a step for a minute. Does the Family Leave Act, its main sections that give the right to family leave, the state act. The parental families. The parental and family leave act. Does it limit it to employees who are a certain number of hours or full time? Mean, why do we have to deal with all these exceptions?

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, to be eligible, you do have to have worked a certain amount of time and for, hold on the statute, you I'll try to have to have been with the employer a certain amount of time and you need to have worked a certain number of hours for that employer.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: That's what I didn't understand, I didn't understand why. I understand why. I mean, I'm seeing we're having to catch all these people, and so

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: I wanted to know what the base rule is. So these were people that were not previously covered, historically have not been covered by our state law. I think Because it's just the fact, because they didn't qualify, they didn't meet the definition, And I think the fact that with what the General Assembly did last session, they weren't expanding, they weren't generally making, changing the number of hours or whatever time you were doing, they were just changing who a family

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: member was, that's expensive.

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: But I think it then, think as as representative Krasnow noted, once that then gets attention, people are like, oh, well, why why

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: can't

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: we be covered as well? And the fact that there was this particular reach out to include airline crews, specifically under the under the federal FMLA, I think is and, represented Krasnow will know, but that probably triggered. Yeah.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: And And this is, again, a policy choice if we wanna continue down this road. And the folks who have asked for that understand that this likely wouldn't be a stand alone bill. So I was gonna propose that, you know, we continue to think about this. And then as we may receive other labor related bills, if we wanna talk about it again. But, again, it is a policy choice, but as Sophie mentioned, it did the senate added another group, that's typically what happens. Right? People start to say, hey. What about me? And anyway. So that's why I put the bill forward.

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. So the definition here is, know, employee needs a person in in consideration of has been continuously employed by the same employer for a period of one year an average of at least thirty hours per week or meets the service requirements, again, that's the language that we're looking at changing here, That's the flight crews there, 29 CFR eight twenty five-eight zero one. So yeah, there is that requirement. So again, if you've only worked a limited number of weeks during the year, your chances are you're not going to average at least thirty hours a week.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I think I just I

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: think I recall us having dialogue last year and in previous years around just around language, around who to include, and then this is exactly what happens when you start adding other groups, that where does it stop, right? Because then it's going to be like, oh, then it's a teacher, then it's like, well, who else is going to come? And I feel like, I'm not saying I don't wanna take this up. I'm just saying I wanna air on the side of caution because we're always going to be excluding someone. And I don't feel I feel like if we determine the definitions around employee and work requirements, that feels okay. I feel like putting in specific job titles and roles feels less okay to me because- We're- For a moment. Yeah, that just feels like scope creep a little bit. And I feel like defining, expanding the definitions of family member and extended families and alternative families and all the different kinds of families we have, great, love that. Defining employee and work hour requirement, great, love that. I feel like when we get into adding specific job titles and roles, I feel like maybe it should be something different around having those job titles be reworded to fall into that work, that employment category as opposed to adding them to do you understand what I'm saying? I just feel like it So

[Unidentified Committee Member (possibly Elizabeth Burrows)]: in order to change the definition to catch them rather than add them specifically in

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Right.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: I just feel like we're gonna end we'll end up back here next year. Right? So, like, let's say you pass this. And then it'll be next year. I'd be like, oh, when we when we added the teachers, then the artist decided they would, you know, or whatever whatever group. Right?

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: And I I understand, and I'm not trying to redirect the conversation. But, again, if we take this bill up, I think those are the types of conversation we would have, but we haven't even heard testimony from the people impacted to say why they're different or who they are. I get the slippery slope of continuing to add different names, but I really feel like that's more of a place we should talk about if we decide to even take testimony. So as a walk through, I'm just do you see what I'm saying?

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Yeah. You're just keeping us in line.

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: That's alright.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: No. No. No. I appreciate the conversation. I'm just saying, like, I'd like to hear to I don't I haven't even heard from a teacher. I haven't heard from organizations to even hear why they feel that way. The senate added you know? And so I would just prefer if we could wait to to discuss the merits of why or not why.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possibly Elizabeth Burrows)]: Sophie, what is your sense for how many different types of employees are covered by a definition that is elsewhere? Is there a lot of them? Are we talking just a handful?

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: Think one, I mean, possible limiting thing would be, and again, wouldn't answer what representative Dodge is concerned about, but one, as you go out, it sounds slippery slope would be to sweep in any other special groups that are covered by the federal FMLA and saying, oh, it's okay for those to now be included in the Parental and Family Leave Act. But I think I might have the list here. So there are some, right, with twelve months an employee must have been employed by an employer need not be consecutive then. So then there are just different limits. And again, these things are so complex because again, you're trying to sort of answer every question like, well, what about this? What about that? But under the federal law, there are just all kinds of exceptions. That might be one way to do it, you're covered by the FMLA, if you qualify for a special exception, then you'd be covered under the PFLA because presumably at the federal level they concluded that even though those employees have bit of unusual schedules, they should otherwise be covered. But it does explicitly exclude those outside of class.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possibly Elizabeth Burrows)]: Same employer period, one year for an average who's thirty hours a week or is covered under the FNOLI or defined by FNOLI. Yes. That I do see all of those weird categories.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Well, I do think what this goes to is for you just to make a note to yourself following what Emilie was saying. We we're not really debating the substance of the bill today, but I think do think this is a valuable conversation because it alerts you, Sophie, as the issues you're going to want to look at and report back to us if we do take it off the wall. I mean, it's clear that the two exceptions we're talking about are exceptions that aren't trying to cover everybody who's part time, they're aimed at what we think of as full time occupations, but which for physical or traditional reasons don't make the thirty hour, and you know, how you do that effectively, legally, it could be by reference to the federal statute, could be trying something else, could be just listing exemptions and knowing that we might have another one next year. So, we'll talk more about that if we decide to take it off the wall. Emilie, you made reference, we have to decide kind of like what pretty soon we're going to have to start deciding what we're going to spend our time on. Did you make a reference earlier to the fact that you think there are other bills coming along the line that would be enough related to this that we'd wanna merge them or otherwise get them under one bill or consider them together or something? Or you just as a general matter, you wanna wait

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: a I'm little not a lawyer, but I am and I don't I can't say without knowing particularly what's germane and not germane, but, you know, we have a number of, I believe, chair, we had discussed that we may be taking up, more testimony on some different labor bills at some point Yeah. That that we have. And then Sophie alluded to the fact that there's a senate labor bill, so perhaps after crossover. But even though I am a sponsor of this bill, I made it clear to the folks and to others that this wasn't gonna be probably time of the standalone and take a lot of the committee's time at this point. And so I I think the best course of action would be to kind of just we had a good discussion and and continue to think about that this exists and that kinda wait to see what else happens.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: You think of one thing that occurred to me, and I'm wondering what you think about it. We've talked about some of us, whether we ought to be having, taking testimony sort of generically on how the Parental and Family Leave Act is working as it's implemented by the administration, and is this an opportunity to do that, should we combine them, etcetera. I'm just putting that as a placeholder to think about it.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: I think that's great,

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: because then we can get both questions. How is it going and would this affect you greatly?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Right, and also larger questions about the insurance policy, is it being used, is it broad enough in its coverage, etcetera. That's something, Sophie, that we have talked about, and so I'm putting you unnoticed. Do you understand what the issue would be, which is sort of a deeper dive on how is the

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: Is that working?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah, and how is it working through the insurance policy?

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: Oh, is that more to do with the sick time?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: That's right. Oh, no, yeah,

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: this is unfair. Okay.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I'm sorry.

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: Okay.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I got mixed up. Okay. Anything else? Other questions?

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: I'm grateful that this is on our radar.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay. So we now have covered everything that we have to cover today. Great. It is 02:20. Is there any other comment, matter that people want to discuss before we adjourn?

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: No, I just want to clarify. I just want to clarify my statement earlier so that it's not misconstrued or misinterpreted. And it's not that I did not

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: want to include educators as support educators.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: No, I think that was clear.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Okay. I'm just, I'm not saying they should not be included, I'm just saying, is there a different way to do it? That was what I was asking. Don't want people like, she's against the teachers. No, that's not what this is.

[Sophie Zdatny (Legislative Counsel)]: Right. Thank you.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: All right. Well, those who are watching us online, we are about to adjourn. I hope you all have a good weekend.