Texas Tribune by Emma Platoff April 11, 2019
LGBTQ advocates and business groups have warned that the measures could imperil municipal rules that outlaw discrimination.After facing unexpected friction in Texas’ Republican-dominated Legislature, a pair of bills to override local rules mandating paid sick leave and standardize employment practices across the state passed the Senate on Thursday over the objections of LGBTQ advocates who have warned the bills could threaten local non-discrimination protections.
Since Austin passed an ordinance in February 2018 mandating that employers allow workers to accrue paid sick time, Republican state lawmakers have made clear that they hoped to override such local rules. The lawmakers have called the requirements anti-small business and fretted that they created a “patchwork of regulations†across the state.
The two bills, Senate Bills 2485 and 2487, passed in two party-line 18-12 votes, and now head to the House, where similar legislation on the issue has yet to move.
What seemed to be the consensus paid sick leave bill — which had been filed by Sen. Brandon Creighton in the Senate and Rep. Craig Goldman in the House and had earned the public blessing of the governor — drew ire and stalled after a Senate committee overhauled the measure and stripped out a provision that explicitly protected non-discrimination ordinances.
LGBTQ advocates had cautioned for months that any bill overriding local control over employment practices could threaten several Texas’ cities’ measures prohibiting discrimination against members of the LGBTQ community.
While that bill passed out of committee a month ago, it never made it to the floor. It had been, one business advocate said, “poisoned†after LGBTQ advocates and a coalition of business groups came out against it.
Last month, Creighton filed four narrower bills, each aimed at accomplishing a slice of the original measure’s goals. Two of those four bills passed Thursday; they would prevent local governments from mandating paid sick leave, as well as regulating certain benefits practices.
More:
https://www.texastribune.org/2019/04/11/texas-senate-paid-sick-leave-LGBTQ-protections/
