New paid sick leave requirement targeted by Missouri Republicans

Worries that “slackers” may take advantage of Missouri’s new law requiring most employers to give workers paid sick leave isn’t a good enough reason to repeal it, a Democratic lawmaker said Wednesday.

In November, voters overwhelmingly approved an initiative petition called Proposition A that requires employers with business receipts greater than $500,000 a year to provide at least one hour of paid leave for every 30 hours worked. Employers with fewer than 15 workers must allow workers to use at least 40 hours per year, with larger employers mandated to allow at least 56 hours.

During a House committee hearing Wednesday, Democratic state Rep. Steve Butz of St. Louis challenged Republican state Rep. Sherri Gallick to back up her argument that employees can’t be trusted to use paid sick leave only for the reasons allowed by the law.

“Under the mandated sick leave, potential abuse is nearly impossible to address,” Gallick, a Republican from Belton, told the House Commerce Committee. “Employers cannot ask an employee why they were absent, leaving them vulnerable to lawsuits for merely inquiring.”

Only workers employed under a fixed-term contract are exempt from Missouri’s at-will employment rules.

While the mandate created in Proposition A prohibits employers from firing workers who use the leave, Missouri law doesn’t require employers to give any reason for discharging a worker.

“My hunch is, if you’re a slacker, you’ve been calling in sick already, and this is an at-will state, and I’ve already fired you,” said Butz, who owns an insurance agency.

Proposition A also increased the state minimum wage. It was set at $13.75 on Jan. 1 and will increase to $15 an hour on Jan. 1, 2026. After that, it will be adjusted for inflation, as it has been since 2007.

Gallick is sponsoring a bill to repeal the paid leave law, delay the $15 minimum wage to 2028 and repeal the provision indexing it to inflation.

Gallick’s bill, as proposed, would have delayed implementation of the paid leave provisions from May 1 to Jan. 1. During the hearing, she presented a substitute with all the provisions she wants to enact.

That change brought some questioning from fellow Republicans who wanted to know why she didn’t include all the things she wanted in the bill when it was filed.

“Was this House committee substitute your original intent?” asked Rep. Don Mayhew, a Republican from Crocker.

“Yes,” Gallick replied.

“Then why didn’t you just do that bill instead of this bill that changes a few dates?” Mayhew asked.

Gallick said she filed it to get it in line for a hearing, then listened to businesses in her district to determine what was most important to them.

“That is why I kind of had a kind of a vague bill in the beginning,” Gallick said.

Mayhew said he doesn’t oppose some of the changes but wasn’t pleased with the way it was delivered.

“I’ve never seen one to be this big of a difference between the filed bill and the House committee substitute,” Mayhew said.

Gallick’s bill is one of several being considered in the commerce committee that would alter the terms of Proposition A. There are bills to exempt employers with 50 or fewer workers from the new minimum wage, to limit application of the new minimum wage to workers 21 and older and to repeal the inflation adjustment.

The campaign to pass Proposition A drew no large-scale opposition prior to the vote. But a court challenge filed in early December by major business advocacy groups asks the Missouri Supreme Court to invalidate the vote. The court has set the case for arguments on March 12.

Many of the same groups involved with the lawsuit — Associated Industries of Missouri, the Missouri Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Missouri Grocers Association and others — are backing the bills to change Proposition A.

Ron Berry, a lobbyist for Jobs with Justice, said the challenges should have come earlier.

“When the petition is first certified for circulation, there’s an opportunity to challenge that ballot summary. That didn’t happen,” Berry said Wednesday. “When the petition signatures are turned in and the initiative is certified for the ballot, there’s an opportunity to challenge the signatures. That didn’t happen. None of these challenges started coming until after the voters approved this by 57%.”

Kara Corches, executive director of the Missouri Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said businesses are worried about language barring employers from attempting “to interfere with, restrain, or deny the exercise of, or the attempt to exercise, any right” to paid leave.

The language creates a potential liability that has employers worried about “trial attorneys getting rich off of their backs.”

The paid leave mandate opens the door for other requirements, she said.

“This is a very slippery slope,” Corches said. “Once we start on this, it’s minimum wages, it’s paid sick leave, what’s next? Is it the dress code in your workplace? Is it the days that you’re allowed to be closed?”

Committee Chairman David Casteel, a Republican from High Ridge, said he intends to work through the week to develop a bill that both businesses and advocates defending Proposition A can accept.

“It has never been my intent to overturn the will of the people,” Casteel said. “I just want to create a product that will be agreeable and compromised by both the employee and the employer.”