Mainers sounded off earlier this week to weigh in on the implementation and administration of the state’s new Paid Family and Medical Leave (PFML) Program.
Many of those who spoke during the Tuesday morning meeting were business and industry association advocates who shared their perspective on the program’s importance to employees throughout the state, citing personal experiences that have led them to believe that the program provides a critical support for Maine workers.
Representatives of the Maine State Chamber of Commerce and HospitalityMaine also appeared before the Authority to speak about the program from the perspective of business owners, offering recommendations to make its implementation more seamless for employers.
This program, enacted last year as part of a spending bill, has imposed a one percent payroll tax on most working Mainers and their employers to fund paid leave for all employees statewide, with benefits not scheduled to begin until May of 2026.
Mainers began contributing to the program on January 1 of this year, sixteen months ahead of when benefits are first scheduled to become available.
Beginning in the spring of next year, Maine workers will be eligible to take up to twelve weeks of paid leave to care for a sick family member, as well as to bond with a newborn baby or newly adopted child. Also eligible for leave are those who are experiencing a serious health condition and are rendered unable to work for an extended period, and anyone serving as a caregiver for someone who meets the other conditions.
[RELATED: Mainers Will Have the Opportunity to be Heard on the State’s New Paid Leave Program Next Month]
Kicking off Tuesday’s the public comment period was Rep. Kristen Cloutier (D-Lewiston), the House lawmaker behind the original push to establish a PFML program in Maine.
In her remarks, she discussed the slate of proposals considered by Augusta legislators earlier this year that sought to either amend the program or, in some cases, eliminate it entirely.
“We have just concluded a very intense legislative session where paid family and medical leave was front and center,” she said. “A wide range of bills were introduced with many that would have fundamentally weakened the structure of the program.”
“Some proposals would have flattened wage replacement to a single 65 percent rate, threatening both solvency and fairness,” she continued. “Others would have carved out entire industries, like agriculture or education, undermining universality. Still others sought to make the program voluntary, delay eligibility, or even repeal the law altogether.”
“On paper, many of these look like small tweaks or technical fixes, but in reality, it would have significantly weakened and in some cases dismantled the program altogether,” Rep. Cloutier said. “At the end of the day, all these bills were defeated. The only bill that passed was the DOL’s bill to actually make minor technical changes.”
Also speaking Tuesday morning was Patrick Woodcock of the Maine State Chamber of Commerce, who used his three minutes before the Authority to point out some of the unique characteristics of Maine’s employment landscape and offer some recommendations for improving the program.
“Maine has one of the most seasonal economies in the country,” Woodcock said, adding that 60 percent of businesses in Maine are considered to be small businesses.
Delving into the specifics of the PFML Program, Woodcock focused primarily on the 120 day eligibility requirement for employees and the undue hardship provision for employers.
Woodcock attempted to clear up some “confusion” regarding the 120 day waiting period, noting that it currently only applies to the job protection aspect of the PFML Program, not an employee’s ability to access paid leave benefits more broadly.
With respect to the undue hardship provision, he urged Authority members to consider supporting a proposal that would give business owners a greater degree of clarity regarding what specifically would qualify as an undue hardship under the law.
Under the MDOL’s final rules for the program, employers are given the opportunity to assert that the timing or duration of an employee’s requested leave creates an undue hardship that cannot be overcome.
Despite this, employees still retain “the ability to take leave within a reasonable time frame relative to the proposed schedule,” and “a good faith attempt” must be made to work out a schedule that would not be disruptive of the employer’s operation.
If medical leave is requested, the final schedule agreed upon by the employer and the employee must “be sufficient to accommodate the healthcare needs of the employee” as determined by the employee’s healthcare provider.
Although the MDOL’s rules for the program expounded on the process by which an employer may claim an undue hardship, no further guidance was given on what circumstances would constitute appropriate grounds for such an exception to be granted.
Woodcock’s comments on Tuesday echoed those he shared with the Maine Wire earlier this year.
“It’s really just one sentence in the statute,” Woodcock said at the time. “And I think that there should be some greater guidance from the Legislature of what are the purposes, and that we all agree that there’s some examples that I think we could come to that are reasonable uses of asserting undue hardship, and there are examples that I think we could come up with that are that are not within that standard.”
Nate Cloutier of HospitalityMaine expressed agreement with the Chamber’s position on the 120-day waiting period and the undue hardship provision while also speaking to LD 894, one of the many bills considered by legislators during their most recent session.
While this was the only PFML-related bill to be signed into law this year, lawmakers opted to advance the version of the bill supported by the Legislature’s Democratic majority over that which was developed by their Republican colleagues.
The HHS Committee’s minority report — which Cloutier explained was developed in collaboration with Maine’s business community — was ultimately set aside. This rejected iteration of the bill sought to incorporate many of the PFML reforms that had been cast aside by lawmakers earlier in the session in addition to the new penalties and enforcement mechanisms central to the original version of the bill.
Cloutier described the minority’s version of LD 894 as “modest in nature,” arguing that it “made a very good faith attempt” to keep the core of the PFML Program intact.
He also noted during his remarks Tuesday that there is “nothing [he] hear[s] about more than this program from [his] members.”
Expressing an alternative perspective was the Executive Director of the Maine Women’s Lobby Destie Hohman Sprague, who suggested that the program ought to be left largely alone until it has had a chance to take effect.
“Many proposals [in the Legislature] created more confusion, not less, so I really hope that you will let the current program as it stands move forward,” she said. “[And I hope] that we have an opportunity to let the program move forward, see how it works, and ensure that people get the benefits they deserve and that we take that learning to move forward.”
When asked about if she believes employees also struggle to understand the undue hardship provision, the Executive Director explained that the “least sophisticated business are often employing the least sophisticated workers, and/or workers that have less power in the workplace or workers who have less power to move on to other employment situations.”
She went on to say that the Authority ought to focus on ensuring that “we are not creating standardized approaches around hardship that end up excluding specific sets of workers.”
“Workers we’re talking to are not pointing to hardship specifically because they don’t perceive that they are in a position to fight back against it,” she said. “If the employer seeks a hardship, then maybe they don’t get the benefits they paid for. And that’s the real concern, is being able to preserve access to the benefits they’re paying into.”
After about ninety minutes worth of public comments, accepted both in-person and virtually, the Authority moved into the meeting portion of the agenda, which lasted for approximately the same amount of time.
This fifteen member body was created under state law and is tasked with “advising on the administration of the Paid Family and Medical Leave program.” Eleven of these members were appointed by the governor and subject to approval by the Legislature.
