House General and Housing committee signals opposition to amendment creating new employer exemption to unpaid-leave job protections

Members of the House General and Housing Committee on March 20, 2025, signaled opposition in a straw poll to an amendment to H.1461 that would create a new employer exemption to the statute that protects an employee’s right to return to a job after unpaid leave.

Representative Anne Donahue, the amendment’s proponent, told the committee the change would add "an exemption to holding a job open for someone" and would require "clear and convincing evidence demonstrated by the employer" that filling the job was impossible and that doing so was the only option to "prevent substantial and grievous economic injury" to the employer’s operation. "This is not an easy lift to be able to use an exemption," Donahue said.

The amendment was presented as narrowing language meant to mirror an existing "unique services" exemption, while also accommodating additional categories of leave the bill would cover. Donahue said she supports the underlying act’s aim to expand unpaid-leave protections and that the proposed exemption was intended as a narrow relief valve for employers in exceptional circumstances.

Committee members questioned how an employer would prove it had made a sufficient recruitment effort and raised concerns about the practical effect on small employers already facing staffing shortages. One committee member with HR experience said the amendment would make leave management "more complicated" and warned of litigation risk if employers negotiated leave terms differently for individual workers. Another member described situations in construction and contracting where a short-staffed crew meeting a fixed deadline could create economic harm beyond a single employee’s absence.

Members also noted existing limitations in the law that already constrain employer actions: to be a covered employer a business must meet employee-count thresholds (discussants cited coverage applying above 10 or 15 employees depending on circumstances) and employees generally must have worked a qualifying period and hours (committee discussion referenced a 30-hours-per-week threshold and a one-year tenure requirement for covered employees).

After discussion, a committee member moved to find the amendment "unfavorable"; another committee member seconded the motion. The committee took a straw poll; the tally reported in the transcript was nine in favor and two opposed, and the motion to find the amendment unfavorable carried in that informal poll. The transcript records the tally as a straw poll and does not show a formal roll-call or binding committee vote on final passage of the amendment.

The debate repeatedly distinguished the policy goals of expanding leave protections — which proponents described as promoting equality and extending protections to victims of domestic violence and bereavement — from concerns about the effect on small employers and on operations in industries with scarce, specialized workers.

The committee adjourned after the straw poll. The transcript does not record a subsequent formal committee vote on the amendment or on final passage of H.1461.