Michigan Senator: Employer Mandates Are For Other People

Democratic State Sen. Jim Ananich thinks that private sector employers should offer more fringe benefits, and if they won’t do it voluntarily he has introduced bills to make them. They include:

- 2014 Senate Bill 1112, to mandate that employers grant employee shift-change requests according to very specific rules.

- 2014 Senate Bill 1012, to mandate that employers give employees three hours off on election days.

- 2011 House Bill 4898, to mandate that employers give employees time off to attend each of their children's school events.

- Three separate bills to impose a paid sick leave mandate on Michigan employers, including small businesses.

Recently Ananich and the Senate Democratic Caucus put out an advertisement recruiting people for work in his office. It said the work would be especially attractive to law school students or recent college graduates and specified a time commitment of 8-plus hours per week. The pay? Zero dollars per hour.

ForTheRecord Says: An email from Joe Lehman, president of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, took note of the Senate posting and shared the following:

“Michigan imposes many mandates on employers that make it harder or even impossible to hire more inexperienced or unskilled people who want to work. It’s good to see Sen. Ananich recognizing the value of creating opportunities for entry-level positions without such burdens.”