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Season 3, Episode 3: A Conversation with Chris Davis of the CBIA
From Lawyer to Employer: A Shipman Podcast
Get ready to dive into the 2025 Connecticut legislative landscape with Season 3, Episode 3 of From Lawyer to Employer! Join host Dan Schwartz and special guest Chris Davis, Vice President of Public Policy with the Connecticut Business and Industry Association (CBIA), as they preview key issues for the 2025 Connecticut General Assembly session. This episode highlights what employers need to know about upcoming labor and employment law developments, from proposed changes to non-disclosure and non-compete agreements to predictive scheduling, AI regulations, and workplace conditions. Stay informed, get involved, and discover practical insights for navigating potential legislative changes in the workplace.
Dan Schwartz: Welcome back to another Episode of From Lawyer to Employer. I'm your host and partner at Shipman Goodwin, Dan Schwartz. It's the start of a new year, and what better to start a new year than by talking about the new legislative session at the General Assembly in Connecticut. There's always lots going on at the legislature, and it's always interesting to talk about that with our friends at the Connecticut Business and Industry Association.
So, with that, we have Chris Davis, who has agreed to join us to give us a preview of what we think is up in the air, up for discussion for the 2025 legislative session. So welcome, Chris.
Chris Davis: Great. Thank you for having me here, Dan. I'm excited to join you.
Dan Schwartz: Chris, before we get into it, can you just tell the listeners a little bit about yourself?
Chris Davis: Sure. I joined CBIA a little over a year ago to become their Vice President of Public Policy, overseeing our lobbying team at CBIA, which is a group of six of us lobbyists. Advocating on every issue you could think that could impact employers from tax policy to energy to health care to employment laws. So, we cover every legislative committee that we have at the General Assembly, which is now 28 because they have added two new committees this year. It keeps always expanding at the legislature it seems like, never contracting on the number of topics that they're willing to take on. So, we are very active at the capital there every day advocating on behalf of employers across the state. Excited to join you here today to talk about a number of the employment law issues that we anticipate will be a hot topic this year.
Dan Schwartz: Yeah, this is a long session for the legislature, right? Where it gets started on January 8th and runs several months, right?
Chris Davis: It goes right up until the first Wednesday in June. So, we're looking at basically a six month of legislative session and what's interesting about these long sessions as they're called, is that individual legislators can introduce any bill they want during this time period, which is rather unique to Connecticut's legislative process.
So, you'll see potentially thousands of bills this year introduced by a number of different legislators. Some are just introduced and you never see them again. Other ones are out there and they get picked up on by the committees and they have public hearings. But why we have to pay attention to all of them is because once they have that public hearing, they're eligible to be voted on by the committee and then sent to either the house or the Senate, depending on what type of bill it is.
So, we always have to pay attention and track all of those thousands of bills that come out each year, just to make sure that nothing slips through the cracks for our member employers.
Dan Schwartz: And where do most of the sort of employment law bills find their home? There's a particular committee, right?
Chris Davis: So most of those employment law bills will be in the labor and public employees committee, and that will take up almost all of them. However, there's certain bills that deal with labor law issues like workers comp issues, sometimes other kind of business law related employment law issues that go through the judiciary committee. For instance last year the bill that was looking to ban non-disclosure agreements and non-disparagement agreements that actually started in the judiciary committee. And sometimes some of those workers comp issues also start their judiciary So you really have to be monitoring both of them to be able to keep track of all the potential bills that come through.
Dan Schwartz: So that's probably a good segue. So, although you mentioned that any legislator can introduce any bill that they want. There are some bills that you tend to see from year to year. And is this non-disclosure, NDA bill something that we anticipate is going to come back for the 2025 session?
Chris Davis: Yes, a version of it is most likely going to be brought up again.It's something that has come up the last few years and it really has spurred out of the me too movement that took place now several years ago and has really been on the forefront. A number of legislators keep pushing for either an all-out ban, which is what we had last year or some sort of limited ban on what type of non-disclosure and non-disparagement agreements could be made available.
Right now, we're waiting to see what version of it they go with, whether they go full board and do the full banning of non-disclosure, non-disparagement to the point where you have to rip up the ones that perhaps you already have, or is it going to be a limited scope that really limits itself in most cases and what we've seen other states do, which is limits to sexual harassment issues that you wouldn't be able to hold employees to a non-disclosure or non-disparagement agreement around that space. But you know each year because each legislator can introduce new ideas in January of each year, you have the chance that it could end up being something where a legislator will come out with a bill that looks to ban non-disclosures or non-discouragement entirely as well.
Dan Schwartz: Yeah, and I suppose the best way for employers to understand what's going on is to be involved in the legislative process to track some of these bills.
One question related to this that might be interesting is if someone is interested in these bills, and you mentioned the public hearing at a committee, can employers do something in advance of that, like submit a statement or show up at the hearing?
Chris Davis: Yeah, so with these public hearings, you have two options that participate are actually really three since COVID you can submit testimony, written testimony, it goes into the public record available for public search - it's on the CGA website, the Connecticut General Assembly's website, or if you want to be even more proactive and be really engaged on the topic, you have an option to do either - testify in person at the legislative office building, which is always the one that we encourage and the one that has the most effect because you're actually they're sitting in the same room with those legislators that are making decisions, but since COVID, they've also given the option to have electronic testimony or virtual testimony.
So, during those public hearings, you'll actually see the legislature bounce back and forth between those who are testifying in person and those who are testifying virtually. So, they'll have screens set up in each committee room and have the presenters or the ones providing testimony actually pop up on screen and discuss the issues.
It cuts both ways. It's great to be in the room. You see how people react and feed off of how they are when, especially when you get into the question and answer part of testimony. However, it does open the opportunity for individuals who may not be able to commit to six, seven, eight hours of a public hearing at the legislative office building, or fly in if they're perhaps on business somewhere else, they can still testify and have that access.
So, you've really seen an expansion of people being able to weigh in, but it also extends the time period for those public hearings as well as you can imagine.
Dan Schwartz: Yeah, I was once asked if I wanted to sit and wait to testify and when I learned there were dozens of people who are going to be testifying on the bill I did take a hard pass to that, but I think there's a balance that can be struck in between. Let's talk about some of the other bills that we think may get a hearing and may go further than that. Non-compete agreements - is something we've seen pop up in prior years. Is that still something that the CBIA is thinking might come back?
Chris Davis: Yeah, I think it definitely will, especially given the action at the federal level under the Biden administration with the FTC ban that then ultimately has the injunction in place that didn't take effect. I think Connecticut legislators are going to be looking to put their own mark on this issue now, especially since it's unclear exactly how the federal government will respond to this.
So, we're anticipating and in our conversations with the chair of the labor committee is that he tends to be one of the top priorities this year. And instead of just simply going off of the version of the bill that was passed last year, he said he's going to look to start from scratch. Now, I'm not 100% sure what that means, given the activity at the federal level and what he's looking to do, and at the time, a couple weeks ago when we talked to him about it, he wasn't exactly sure what that meant either. But he did mention that he's looking to narrow its focus, really target those industries that they felt were the ones that are, that should not have non competes and maybe not have it be so broadly based as it was last year.
If that was the case, then obviously there's conversations to be had about what types of employees get covered, but I know from CBIA's perspective, one particular note that was a concern from last year's bill was basing it off of some sort of multiplier of minimum wage and not having it based off of perhaps an actual salary amount, or dollar amount for their wage, because as the index on the minimum wage keeps going up, you've had these situations where then you'd have to start tearing up a non-compete agreements or renegotiate that with your employees. It was going to be a moving target each year. So those are the types of things that get into the details of the bill that we're really monitoring closely if it does come out with that again, this year. But we are anticipating it to be one of the top issues in the labor committee this year. And it's important for your listeners to recognize as well - that it's the same chairman and chairwoman from last year that are this year's chairpeople. So you're going to see a lot of the similar topics that get brought up that perhaps weren't passed in years ago.
Dan Schwartz: Yeah, the non-compete agreements, we've seen as we've been advising clients. Really, now there's this hodgepodge that's been developing with states. It's like a California that has really taken a very broad ban on non- competes and then a state like Massachusetts or a Washington state that's a little more surgical, maybe has set salary thresholds. And so, it will be interesting to see where the legislature's come out on this given the hodgepodge of states and as the FTC’s ban really being in limbo to be generous to it and probably dead on arrival is something that will need to be taken into account.
Chris Davis: Yeah, so from our conversation, we're hopeful that it is something that's proposing that more surgical kind of view, which is what the chairperson had mentioned that's what he wants to do. But ultimately, if enough advocates get in their ears or someone comes in, and even after they do the public hearing, and there's people that say, hell, this doesn't go far enough. We always have to be careful and monitor closely because that then you could see the opportunity for them to expand it into a much broader bill like we've seen in some other states as well.
Dan Schwartz: Yeah. One of the other bills that we've seen in prior years before we start talking about what else we might see, but one of the other topics was predictive scheduling. Is that something that may still be on the table?
Chris Davis: Again, that's another issue where there was a broad-based approach to it in the past and previous legislative sessions that ultimately did not get passed and the chair people of the labor committee have mentioned that they're looking to do a little bit more of a surgical, maybe limited to certain industries, maybe in certain areas of the state that would have to be compliant with a predictive scheduling type of approach. But we've seen this done in other states and the impact of it is widespread, depends on really what industries are included and who gets included under the bill and what type of exemptions get included in there - because if there's a disaster, if there's an emergency, if there's something that, leads the, one example that was given from another state is, if a volcano goes off, how do we address, people not being able to come into the office and we still have to pay the other person time and a half.
But previous versions in Connecticut, didn't even allow shift swapping and things like that, that are really big parts of, say, the restaurant industry, right? So, what we do at CBIA is we work very closely with our member trade associations, like the Restaurant Association and others, to really make sure that those types of bills, if they do get are passed, are passed in a way that is manageable and workable for our employers. Which we've run into with the paid sick leave is a much more difficult task as that has taken effect back on January 1st for employers now 25 or more and removed a lot of those exemptions. We're going to be looking to try to do some of those tweaks that are necessary being able to implement here in Connecticut that has made it very difficult for employers to comply so far.
Dan Schwartz: Yeah, we covered paid sick leave on our first podcast and we could have made it a five-part episode given the changes that are going on with that. It's been now a year or two since paid family leave has been implemented are you hearing anything with regard to that law that maybe some tweaks now coming into play, now that it's been in place for a little bit of time
Chris Davis: Yeah, we're hearing a couple of different options that might come up. There's some that believe because there's a large surplus that has been built up into paid family medical leave authorities account due to the tax that's been collected on employees across the state, and just a less of a payout of benefits that they were anticipating. So you have this surplus built up and some legislators are mentioning that they would like to see the benefits actually expanded, especially the weekly benefit, how much an individual could actually receive raising those thresholds on how much of a benefit that they can receive each week. On the other side, you have some that are advocating childcare is a major issue, so maybe we should be using some of the surplus funds under the paid family medical leave to then use those funds to fund child care issues for individuals - that wraparound approach of you have a young person, they're born, you're out on leave for 12 weeks, but then what do you do? Use those paid family medical leave benefits for that.
A few of those different approaches are going to be coming up this year and it's really going to be a matter of does the legislature want to adjust those benefits now, when it's still a really nascent program and not a lot of utilization yet and really use up those surplus funds that many have predicted would run out in a short amount of time, once the program really gets up and running.
Dan Schwartz: Yeah, fair enough. I guess something to keep an eye on. What else should employers be thinking about for this upcoming session? What are you keeping an eye on?
Chris Davis: Beyond just the ones that we've talked about today, there's workplace condition bills, excessive heat bills that have come up in a number of different states that we're anticipating coming back up here again this year, whether it be from warehouse workers, restaurant workers, or even in just a regular workplace setting out outdoor workers - so that's something that we're anticipating to be brought up again. There's always unemployment for striking workers, which a version of it was passed last year and vetoed by the governor. But it is a top priority for a number of the unions in the state. So, we're anticipating that could be part of the discussion as well.
And then from an employment law perspective, just looking at some of these bills to regulate AI and the uses of AI for businesses in general. And then there's a bill about limiting it for HR hiring decisions and the impact that has, especially on small businesses is something that we at CBIA are very closely monitoring because the compliance issues that have been faced in the European Union that have adopted similar regulations have been huge to the count of tens of thousands of dollars for each one of these small businesses, which can really put one right out of business or cause them not to really innovate and use those AI related software capabilities that can really help with productivity and lower their cost in the long run.
Dan Schwartz: Yeah, no, I think that's something that I'm very interested in is as we've been delving into the AI world. It is one of those areas where the technology is advancing so rapidly that the laws aren't quite keeping up. And yet you also don't want too many laws that will stifle the innovation, too, so it's an interesting balance that I think we'll see.
Is there anything else that employers should keep in mind for the upcoming legislative session that's been on your mind that you think employers should know about?
Chris Davis: I think one of the topics that's going to dominate the legislative session is just the concept of the fiscal guardrails and the budget issues that the state faces, because in these long legislative sessions, their main task under the state constitution is to pass a new state budget. And what we saw last year with the discussions that really ground to a halt on negotiating between the governor's office and the legislative leadership, we're anticipating that to be a similar, kind of battle this year that will really drag out until the later parts of the session, May or June - which means a lot of these other topics, especially the bills that we just talked about today, may end up on the cutting room floor because they just run out of time.
Because this main topic of state budget that drives all the spending and all of these programs that we're talking about, all the regulations that would be necessary for all of these are held up until they can come up to an agreement to actually spend the money in certain areas. So, we're really interested to see how those discussions develop over the next few months, because many are predicting that we'll be at a stalemate similar to last year and really hold up a lot of the rest of the legislative process until the very end of session.
Dan Schwartz: That's great to know and something I hope many employers will follow and be involved with, because I think the more that people are involved in the process, the better input and legislators get into the concerns. So, if they want to know more, want to be involved with it, how can they reach out to the CBIA? If they're not already a member, how can they learn more information?
Chris Davis: So, they can visit our website cbia.com where we have a great landing page that gives you all the information about public advocacy that we do at my team, as well as a lot of the member benefits that we offer from CBIA, the opportunity to join policy councils if you really want to be involved and in depth on a lot of these different topics that we talked about here today. A lot of members are part of these policy councils because they want their voice heard and they want us to be better advocates for them at the state capitol. So, I encourage any of your listeners and viewers here today to take a look at our website CBIA.com and see how you can better engage with us and the fellow member employers across the state to advocate for an even better economy here in Connecticut
Dan Schwartz: Great, great stuff, Chris, we really appreciate you taking time out. I know your next six months are going to be a busy one. The long legislative sessions are always fun to watch from the outside. But I know when you're involved, you get crazy days there. So, I hope you get some rest over the next few months.
Chris Davis: I tell my wife, don't expect to see me for the next six months because I'm going to be at the legislative office building an awful lot, but in all honesty, that's the great part about democracy, right? We all get our voice and we can all make it heard and really be those advocates, not just ones like myself representing the association, but also any of you that want to weigh in as Dan mentioned and supplying that testimony and really participating in the process, it would be a great thing to see.
Dan Schwartz: Yeah, and in the state as small as Connecticut, it really is rewarding that you can get involved and do feel like you have some connection with your legislators and with others. So, Chris, thank you so much for joining us and this will wrap up another episode of From Lawyer to Employer. As always you are more than welcome to subscribe to the podcast wherever you get your podcast whether it's Spotify, Apple podcast, or more and I always welcome questions or other suggestions of topics if you'd like to hear.
Just email me at dschwartz@goodwin.com. Would love to hear from you. Thanks again.
Host: Thank you for joining us on this episode of From Lawyer to Employer, a Shipman podcast. This podcast is produced and copyrighted by Shipman and Goodwin LLP. All rights reserved. The contents of this communication are intended for informational purposes only and are not intended or should not be construed as legal advice.
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Chris Davis: It goes right up until the first Wednesday in June. So, we're looking at basically a six month of legislative session and what's interesting about these long sessions as they're called, is that individual legislators can introduce any bill they want during this time period, which is rather unique to Connecticut's legislative process.
So, you'll see potentially thousands of bills this year introduced by a number of different legislators. Some are just introduced and you never see them again. Other ones are out there and they get picked up on by the committees and they have public hearings. But why we have to pay attention to all of them is because once they have that public hearing, they're eligible to be voted on by the committee and then sent to either the house or the Senate, depending on what type of bill it is.
So, we always have to pay attention and track all of those thousands of bills that come out each year, just to make sure that nothing slips through the cracks for our member employers.
Dan Schwartz: And where do most of the sort of employment law bills find their home? There's a particular committee, right?
Chris Davis: So most of those employment law bills will be in the labor and public employees committee, and that will take up almost all of them. However, there's certain bills that deal with labor law issues like workers comp issues, sometimes other kind of business law related employment law issues that go through the judiciary committee. For instance last year the bill that was looking to ban non-disclosure agreements and non-disparagement agreements that actually started in the judiciary committee. And sometimes some of those workers comp issues also start their judiciary So you really have to be monitoring both of them to be able to keep track of all the potential bills that come through.
Dan Schwartz: So that's probably a good segue. So, although you mentioned that any legislator can introduce any bill that they want. There are some bills that you tend to see from year to year. And is this non-disclosure, NDA bill something that we anticipate is going to come back for the 2025 session?
Chris Davis: Yes, a version of it is most likely going to be brought up again.It's something that has come up the last few years and it really has spurred out of the me too movement that took place now several years ago and has really been on the forefront. A number of legislators keep pushing for either an all-out ban, which is what we had last year or some sort of limited ban on what type of non-disclosure and non-disparagement agreements could be made available.
Right now, we're waiting to see what version of it they go with, whether they go full board and do the full banning of non-disclosure, non-disparagement to the point where you have to rip up the ones that perhaps you already have, or is it going to be a limited scope that really limits itself in most cases and what we've seen other states do, which is limits to sexual harassment issues that you wouldn't be able to hold employees to a non-disclosure or non-disparagement agreement around that space. But you know each year because each legislator can introduce new ideas in January of each year, you have the chance that it could end up being something where a legislator will come out with a bill that looks to ban non-disclosures or non-discouragement entirely as well.
Dan Schwartz: Yeah, and I suppose the best way for employers to understand what's going on is to be involved in the legislative process to track some of these bills.
One question related to this that might be interesting is if someone is interested in these bills, and you mentioned the public hearing at a committee, can employers do something in advance of that, like submit a statement or show up at the hearing?
Chris Davis: Yeah, so with these public hearings, you have two options that participate are actually really three since COVID you can submit testimony, written testimony, it goes into the public record available for public search - it's on the CGA website, the Connecticut General Assembly's website, or if you want to be even more proactive and be really engaged on the topic, you have an option to do either - testify in person at the legislative office building, which is always the one that we encourage and the one that has the most effect because you're actually they're sitting in the same room with those legislators that are making decisions, but since COVID, they've also given the option to have electronic testimony or virtual testimony.
So, during those public hearings, you'll actually see the legislature bounce back and forth between those who are testifying in person and those who are testifying virtually. So, they'll have screens set up in each committee room and have the presenters or the ones providing testimony actually pop up on screen and discuss the issues.
It cuts both ways. It's great to be in the room. You see how people react and feed off of how they are when, especially when you get into the question and answer part of testimony. However, it does open the opportunity for individuals who may not be able to commit to six, seven, eight hours of a public hearing at the legislative office building, or fly in if they're perhaps on business somewhere else, they can still testify and have that access.
So, you've really seen an expansion of people being able to weigh in, but it also extends the time period for those public hearings as well as you can imagine.
Dan Schwartz: Yeah, I was once asked if I wanted to sit and wait to testify and when I learned there were dozens of people who are going to be testifying on the bill I did take a hard pass to that, but I think there's a balance that can be struck in between. Let's talk about some of the other bills that we think may get a hearing and may go further than that. Non-compete agreements - is something we've seen pop up in prior years. Is that still something that the CBIA is thinking might come back?
Chris Davis: Yeah, I think it definitely will, especially given the action at the federal level under the Biden administration with the FTC ban that then ultimately has the injunction in place that didn't take effect. I think Connecticut legislators are going to be looking to put their own mark on this issue now, especially since it's unclear exactly how the federal government will respond to this.
So, we're anticipating and in our conversations with the chair of the labor committee is that he tends to be one of the top priorities this year. And instead of just simply going off of the version of the bill that was passed last year, he said he's going to look to start from scratch. Now, I'm not 100% sure what that means, given the activity at the federal level and what he's looking to do, and at the time, a couple weeks ago when we talked to him about it, he wasn't exactly sure what that meant either. But he did mention that he's looking to narrow its focus, really target those industries that they felt were the ones that are, that should not have non competes and maybe not have it be so broadly based as it was last year.
If that was the case, then obviously there's conversations to be had about what types of employees get covered, but I know from CBIA's perspective, one particular note that was a concern from last year's bill was basing it off of some sort of multiplier of minimum wage and not having it based off of perhaps an actual salary amount, or dollar amount for their wage, because as the index on the minimum wage keeps going up, you've had these situations where then you'd have to start tearing up a non-compete agreements or renegotiate that with your employees. It was going to be a moving target each year. So those are the types of things that get into the details of the bill that we're really monitoring closely if it does come out with that again, this year. But we are anticipating it to be one of the top issues in the labor committee this year. And it's important for your listeners to recognize as well - that it's the same chairman and chairwoman from last year that are this year's chairpeople. So you're going to see a lot of the similar topics that get brought up that perhaps weren't passed in years ago.
Dan Schwartz: Yeah, the non-compete agreements, we've seen as we've been advising clients. Really, now there's this hodgepodge that's been developing with states. It's like a California that has really taken a very broad ban on non- competes and then a state like Massachusetts or a Washington state that's a little more surgical, maybe has set salary thresholds. And so, it will be interesting to see where the legislature's come out on this given the hodgepodge of states and as the FTC’s ban really being in limbo to be generous to it and probably dead on arrival is something that will need to be taken into account.
Chris Davis: Yeah, so from our conversation, we're hopeful that it is something that's proposing that more surgical kind of view, which is what the chairperson had mentioned that's what he wants to do. But ultimately, if enough advocates get in their ears or someone comes in, and even after they do the public hearing, and there's people that say, hell, this doesn't go far enough. We always have to be careful and monitor closely because that then you could see the opportunity for them to expand it into a much broader bill like we've seen in some other states as well.
Dan Schwartz: Yeah. One of the other bills that we've seen in prior years before we start talking about what else we might see, but one of the other topics was predictive scheduling. Is that something that may still be on the table?
Chris Davis: Again, that's another issue where there was a broad-based approach to it in the past and previous legislative sessions that ultimately did not get passed and the chair people of the labor committee have mentioned that they're looking to do a little bit more of a surgical, maybe limited to certain industries, maybe in certain areas of the state that would have to be compliant with a predictive scheduling type of approach. But we've seen this done in other states and the impact of it is widespread, depends on really what industries are included and who gets included under the bill and what type of exemptions get included in there - because if there's a disaster, if there's an emergency, if there's something that, leads the, one example that was given from another state is, if a volcano goes off, how do we address, people not being able to come into the office and we still have to pay the other person time and a half.
But previous versions in Connecticut, didn't even allow shift swapping and things like that, that are really big parts of, say, the restaurant industry, right? So, what we do at CBIA is we work very closely with our member trade associations, like the Restaurant Association and others, to really make sure that those types of bills, if they do get are passed, are passed in a way that is manageable and workable for our employers. Which we've run into with the paid sick leave is a much more difficult task as that has taken effect back on January 1st for employers now 25 or more and removed a lot of those exemptions. We're going to be looking to try to do some of those tweaks that are necessary being able to implement here in Connecticut that has made it very difficult for employers to comply so far.
Dan Schwartz: Yeah, we covered paid sick leave on our first podcast and we could have made it a five-part episode given the changes that are going on with that. It's been now a year or two since paid family leave has been implemented are you hearing anything with regard to that law that maybe some tweaks now coming into play, now that it's been in place for a little bit of time
Chris Davis: Yeah, we're hearing a couple of different options that might come up. There's some that believe because there's a large surplus that has been built up into paid family medical leave authorities account due to the tax that's been collected on employees across the state, and just a less of a payout of benefits that they were anticipating. So you have this surplus built up and some legislators are mentioning that they would like to see the benefits actually expanded, especially the weekly benefit, how much an individual could actually receive raising those thresholds on how much of a benefit that they can receive each week. On the other side, you have some that are advocating childcare is a major issue, so maybe we should be using some of the surplus funds under the paid family medical leave to then use those funds to fund child care issues for individuals - that wraparound approach of you have a young person, they're born, you're out on leave for 12 weeks, but then what do you do? Use those paid family medical leave benefits for that.
A few of those different approaches are going to be coming up this year and it's really going to be a matter of does the legislature want to adjust those benefits now, when it's still a really nascent program and not a lot of utilization yet and really use up those surplus funds that many have predicted would run out in a short amount of time, once the program really gets up and running.
Dan Schwartz: Yeah, fair enough. I guess something to keep an eye on. What else should employers be thinking about for this upcoming session? What are you keeping an eye on?
Chris Davis: Beyond just the ones that we've talked about today, there's workplace condition bills, excessive heat bills that have come up in a number of different states that we're anticipating coming back up here again this year, whether it be from warehouse workers, restaurant workers, or even in just a regular workplace setting out outdoor workers - so that's something that we're anticipating to be brought up again. There's always unemployment for striking workers, which a version of it was passed last year and vetoed by the governor. But it is a top priority for a number of the unions in the state. So, we're anticipating that could be part of the discussion as well.
And then from an employment law perspective, just looking at some of these bills to regulate AI and the uses of AI for businesses in general. And then there's a bill about limiting it for HR hiring decisions and the impact that has, especially on small businesses is something that we at CBIA are very closely monitoring because the compliance issues that have been faced in the European Union that have adopted similar regulations have been huge to the count of tens of thousands of dollars for each one of these small businesses, which can really put one right out of business or cause them not to really innovate and use those AI related software capabilities that can really help with productivity and lower their cost in the long run.
Dan Schwartz: Yeah, no, I think that's something that I'm very interested in is as we've been delving into the AI world. It is one of those areas where the technology is advancing so rapidly that the laws aren't quite keeping up. And yet you also don't want too many laws that will stifle the innovation, too, so it's an interesting balance that I think we'll see.
Is there anything else that employers should keep in mind for the upcoming legislative session that's been on your mind that you think employers should know about?
Chris Davis: I think one of the topics that's going to dominate the legislative session is just the concept of the fiscal guardrails and the budget issues that the state faces, because in these long legislative sessions, their main task under the state constitution is to pass a new state budget. And what we saw last year with the discussions that really ground to a halt on negotiating between the governor's office and the legislative leadership, we're anticipating that to be a similar, kind of battle this year that will really drag out until the later parts of the session, May or June - which means a lot of these other topics, especially the bills that we just talked about today, may end up on the cutting room floor because they just run out of time.
Because this main topic of state budget that drives all the spending and all of these programs that we're talking about, all the regulations that would be necessary for all of these are held up until they can come up to an agreement to actually spend the money in certain areas. So, we're really interested to see how those discussions develop over the next few months, because many are predicting that we'll be at a stalemate similar to last year and really hold up a lot of the rest of the legislative process until the very end of session.
Dan Schwartz: That's great to know and something I hope many employers will follow and be involved with, because I think the more that people are involved in the process, the better input and legislators get into the concerns. So, if they want to know more, want to be involved with it, how can they reach out to the CBIA? If they're not already a member, how can they learn more information?
Chris Davis: So, they can visit our website cbia.com where we have a great landing page that gives you all the information about public advocacy that we do at my team, as well as a lot of the member benefits that we offer from CBIA, the opportunity to join policy councils if you really want to be involved and in depth on a lot of these different topics that we talked about here today. A lot of members are part of these policy councils because they want their voice heard and they want us to be better advocates for them at the state capitol. So, I encourage any of your listeners and viewers here today to take a look at our website CBIA.com and see how you can better engage with us and the fellow member employers across the state to advocate for an even better economy here in Connecticut
Dan Schwartz: Great, great stuff, Chris, we really appreciate you taking time out. I know your next six months are going to be a busy one. The long legislative sessions are always fun to watch from the outside. But I know when you're involved, you get crazy days there. So, I hope you get some rest over the next few months.
Chris Davis: I tell my wife, don't expect to see me for the next six months because I'm going to be at the legislative office building an awful lot, but in all honesty, that's the great part about democracy, right? We all get our voice and we can all make it heard and really be those advocates, not just ones like myself representing the association, but also any of you that want to weigh in as Dan mentioned and supplying that testimony and really participating in the process, it would be a great thing to see.
Dan Schwartz: Yeah, and in the state as small as Connecticut, it really is rewarding that you can get involved and do feel like you have some connection with your legislators and with others. So, Chris, thank you so much for joining us and this will wrap up another episode of From Lawyer to Employer. As always you are more than welcome to subscribe to the podcast wherever you get your podcast whether it's Spotify, Apple podcast, or more and I always welcome questions or other suggestions of topics if you'd like to hear.
Just email me at dschwartz@goodwin.com. Would love to hear from you. Thanks again.
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