MOORHEAD, Minn. (KFGO) – Minnesota District 4 Senator Rob Kupec of Moorhead met with 50 business leaders at a closed door session convened by the FM Chamber at the Hjemkomst Center Friday morning. The businesses expressed their dismay about a bill making its way through state legislature that would make paid family and sick leave mandatory.
Steve Daggett is the President of Midwest Bank in Detroit Lakes. He called the proposal tone deaf.
“We don’t want this to look like it’s a business versus in employee issue – it’s not. We do well because of our employees. And we’ve tried to have cultures that are good for employees, partly because it helps your business but also because it’s so competitive. We feel there’s enough mobility of employees that they can go, if they’re in a place where the benefits are not very good there are so many opportunities where they can get those those benefits. The biggest issue is staffing. And this creates a new program that’s going to compound the staffing issue,” Daggett said.
Matt Gilbertson owns two small businesses in Moorhead.
“Employees are the number one asset. We take care of them the best we can,” Gilbertson said. “We don’t think it’s the government’s job to tell us how we mandate that.”
To fund the program, the state would impose a 0.7% payroll tax on employers. Gilbertson says cities along the North Dakota border would be especially burdened.
“If somebody’s looking for a job in Moorhead or Fargo and we tell them oh, hey, by the way, you’re gonna pay a tax to fund this Family Medical Leave Act, and we’re already playing on unemployment tax. It’s just an extra tax burden on every working employee in Minnesota. And those people will choose to work in Fargo. We have a real challenge on the on the border,” Gilbertson said.
Kupec said he’s heard from a lot of workers and even some other businesses that support the measure.
“In the childcare industry, the majority of them see it as a big plus in helping them meet the needs of childcare in our area,” Kupec said. “We’ve also had other small businesses testify – we can’t offer these and this keeps us competitive with larger businesses that can, and this is a big benefit for us.”
Still, he said he valued the feedback and signaled openness to implementing some of the group’s suggested changes.
“This bill is by no means set in stone,” Kupec said. “Some of the things brought up today are already things that we are discussing behind the scenes and that are in the works.”
The bill is one of the DFL’s top priorities this session.
