SBHRA - HR Issue Positions

SBHRA believes that any organization must deliver competitive products or services to the marketplace and that this must be done at a cost that permits the organization to remain financially viable. Compensation programs should be designed to provide the maximum return to the employees and be consistent with achieving employer goals, while ensuring fair treatment of employees, and rewards to employees for their contributions in helping to meet the organization's objectives. Wages should be determined by the local economic market demands, not by the dictates of government or of special interest groups.

It is not in the public interest to continually redesign the taxation of compensation programs. Any government regulation of these programs should be kept to the minimum to achieve national goals established by Congress.

SBHRA supports legislation to ease the administration of the FMLA and to better serve the workers Congress sought to protect. SBHRA also strongly supports legislation that complies with the California Family Rights Act (CFRA) to assist California employers in administering this legislation.

SBHRA opposes the proposal to allow states to divert unemployment insurance funds to provide paid leave to current employees, under FMLA or CFRA. Such a proposal violates the spirit of the Unemployment Insurance program. Instead, SBHRA supports granting employers the option of providing a sick leave-based tax incentive for employers who choose to offer paid family and medical leaves.

SBHRA supports efforts to reform the FLSA which would:

Allow employers to adopt and communicate broad-based, aggregate incentive compensation programs without being required to recalculate an employee's regular rate in order to determine additional overtime premiums that might be due.
Allow private sector employers to provide, and private sector employees to receive, overtime premiums in the form of time-and-a-half compensatory time.
Allow employers to adopt a pay period of up to two weeks, and only be required to provide overtime compensation for hours worked in excess of an average of forty hours per week. Eliminating the current restrictive mandatory forty-hour workweek would allow both employers and employees greater flexibility in the scheduling of work without the loss of overtime protection for employees.
Permit an employer to more easily identify who is exempt from the minimum wage and overtime provisions of the statute.
Encourage employers to provide optional training opportunities for employees by removing the financial disincentives to do so from the FLSA.
Encourage employers to provide bona fide volunteers with an opportunity to gain valuable experience and/or provide a needed community service without risk of FLSA liability.
Prohibit the Department of Labor from seeking back pay based on legal theories which have not yet been established by the courts, and limit the Department to injunctive relief.
Allow an employee to be considered to be paid on salary basis if the employee received a salary and the employee's paid leave account is reduced for absences of any length, or if their pay is subject to reductions for absences of any length, where the employee's paid leave account is exhausted.

Technological advances such as faxes, electronic mail, electronic date interchange (EDI), internet ordering systems, and other technological advances have transformed the nature of inside sales work. Additionally, the changing nature of the workforce and workplace has enabled inside salespersons to perform many or all of the same functions traditionally

performed by outside salespersons. However, outside salespersons are exempt from the FLSA's overtime requirement and inside salespersons are not. The current outside/inside sales dichotomy enshrined in the FLSA creates unnecessary confusion, does not comport with today's marketplace, and must be updated. Revisions to include/outside sales criteria which are straightforward and which do not create additional administrative burdens will benefit both employers and employees.

SBHRA encourages employers with high numbers of part-time or contingent employees to reassess current and future workforce planning strategies to ensure that all employees are accorded their proper designations. SBHRA also believes that part-time or contingent employment in appropriate circumstances is a legitimate staffing strategy. However, SBHRA also believes that part-time or contingent employment should not be used to avoid an otherwise regular employment relationship with its required or customary benefits, conditions and responsibilities. SBHRA encourages organizations using part-time workers to create a systematic way to alert them to full-time job opportunities within the company and to give them appropriate consideration for available full-time positions.

SBHRA believes that organizations should apply fair employment practices to all workers, regardless of their employment status. Similarly, identical safety and performance standards should be applied. SBHRA supports the right of employers to offer, or decline to offer, benefits and programs to contingent workers (subject to legal requirements) without legislative involvement. The increased costs associated with such legislative mandates could cause unintentional adverse effects, such as decreasing the number of contingent jobs available or increasing the number of companies that eliminate their pension and health benefits programs. SBHRA encourages the exploration of changes to government regulations to make independent health coverage and pension planning easier for contingent workers. This may include full deductibility for individually obtained health insurance and higher limits on IRA contributions and other favorable tax treatments that would make independent health coverage and pension planning easier for contingent workers.

SBHRA opposes legislation that attempts to regulate, restrict or interfere in any way with an employer's legitimate use of part-time or contingent labor. SBHRA opposes proposals that would open doors to further employment litigation and believes employers who undertake practices that are based on sound business judgment and necessity and that minimize potential infringements on the rights of contingent workers, should be free from frivolous challenges.

SBHRA believes that affordable housing is extremely important to the local economic prosperity as well as a key element for employers to recruit and retain highly-qualified employees. SBHRA supports strategies that include: identifying and generating a variety of financial resources for affordable housing; promoting a full range of housing in all communities; establishing federal and state incentives for providing affordable housing and reforming the regulatory framework to eliminate unnecessary barriers to providing affordable housing.

SBHRA supports continuing efforts to lower costs and streamline the workers' compensation system in California while focusing on reducing abuse in the workers' compensation system and ensuring adequate benefits for injured workers. SBHRA supports legislative and regulatory crackdown on workers' compensation claim fraud.

SBHRA supports educational programs, tax incentives and funding that focus on developing the skills of the future workforce. To accomplish this, we encourage member involvement with educational institutions and organizations in teaching and advisory roles to bridge the gap between the business community and the academic world. Particular emphasis is placed on preparing future entrants into the human resource profession.

SBHRA supports legislation allowing worker scheduling flexibility and tax incentives to reduce traffic congestion. We encourage partnerships, which provide alternative forms of transportation, such as carpooling, buses and trains.


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