CT House Floor Session — 2026-04-28

Good afternoon. Will the House please come to order? Members, staff, and guests, please rise and direct your attention to the dais where Deputy Chaplain Rodriguez will lead us in prayer.

And will Representative Johnson from Norwalk lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance? It has Representative Stafstrom here, but he's been here too long to get to do the pledge. So, I knew it was a typo. (MEMBERS): I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.

Mr. Speaker, I only have the Daily Calendar.

Good morning, Mr. Speaker. I rise for a point of introduction.

Today, Mr. Speaker, we have Norwalk Day, the sixth largest, the fastest growing city in the State of Connecticut. So, I'm excited to have us here today. We've got Stew Leonard's downstairs. We've got a community college. We've got our aquarium, our oysters. Everybody, if you like oysters, we've got oysters downstairs. So, I stay here with my colleagues. Of course, Representative Marra is here as well, Representative Dathan. And, of course, we have our entire common council here. I don't know where Rep. Simms is. And, of course, Jack is here. And we're so excited to see everybody come up to the Capitol today. So, just give a round of applause for Norwalk Day, everyone. (applause)

Oh, I don't know, Mr. Speaker.

It's a surprise.

So, if you see a seal down there, that's on you.

And some dogs down there too.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise for an introduction, please.

I stand here with Colby Cheneski. He's a senior in New Fairfield High School. He's coming up today as part of a senior project. He's been following bills online, and he's going to shadow me for a while today. But Colby is also my nephew, and he's headed off to UNC Charlotte in the fall. I wanted to welcome him and congratulate him. (applause)

Good morning, Mr. Speaker. I rise for an introduction.

Next to me, I have my fantastic intern from Trinity University, Ellie Rosen. I'm sorry, Trinity College. My bad. My bad. My bad. Thank you, Mr. Majority Leader.

No. Trinity.

Trinity College. Yes. Thank you so much, Mr. Majority Leader, for the correction. I'm so grateful to be standing with Ellie today because Ellie has been extraordinary. We lost our assistant clerk yet again in the middle of session, and so she has functionally been our assistant clerk on the Planning and Development Committee. She is incredibly meticulous in her attention to detail. And I have to tell you, for those of you who receive my weekly enews, she has been writing a column that is by far the most popular portion of that enewsletter, and we will deeply, deeply miss her. She is a junior, so we are hoping she will come back and visit next year, but I just want a round of applause for all of her hard work this year. (applause)

Good morning, Mr. Speaker.

I'm great. How are you doing?

They do big in Norwalk, so be careful down there.

You may proceed.

It's real nice to have you here today, and I hope you enjoy your day at the Capitol. And you can go see Norwalk Day, Danbury Day, and it's also Hartford Day, which, of course, is the best day. Representative Ackert of the Ocho, what do you got?

Thank you. I appreciate that.

And I would point out a lot of appreciation also for the Minority and Majority Leader and their teams and everything as well. Thank you very much.

Thanks, Representative Ackert. Appreciate that. Let's go to Representative Haddad of the 54th.

You may proceed, sir.

Thank you, Representative Haddad. I'm sure members will be there. Representative Gucker of the 138th, does the hat city have something to say today?

As I noted yesterday, you may realize that it's not just Norwalk is down there, but we have Danbury surrounding Norwalk since we are the 7th largest city in the state, but also the 7th most diverse city in the entire country. I rise to introduce many of our wonderful students from Danbury High School who have come up to join us today to see what democracy looks like here in the Capitol, as well as members of my board of education who have also come up here. Without the leadership of the board of education and their leadership, these students, they will become the future generation of those individuals sitting in this chamber. And I would wish that we give them a round of applause and a warm welcome for joining us this morning. (applause)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise today to introduce Syniah Harding.

Thank you. Senaya is here with her mother, Samara Guzman, and her coach, Terrell Huff. Syniah Harding is one of Connecticut's premier young student athletes and a rising national talent in the rapidly growing sport of girls flag football. She has been selected to participate in the inaugural US Army National Flag Summer Show Case, a first of its kind national event featuring only 250 elite athletes from across 49 states, where she will compete for the opportunity to earn All American honors and a position in the US military appreciation, Flag Bowl in Frisco, Texas. As a junior, she has already earned collegiate scholarship offers from Division 1, Mount Saint Mary's University, and Division 2, Post University. She is a two-time all-conference flag football selection and helped lead Windsor High School to become the first ever CCC girls flag football champions. She is also an accomplished track and field athlete, earning two all-state and two all-conference honors. It is with her leadership, dedication, and excellence continuing to inspire the next generation of females' athlete, and it is my honor to introduce her today. (applause)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Indeed, I do. Mr. Speaker, you know, we know as we get towards the end of the legislative session here, unfortunately, we spend a lot of late nights, and we don't get to spend kind of as much time as we would like with our children, right? I know you know that as well as anybody. But today, I have the high honor and distinct privilege of introducing my daughter, Julia Stafstrom, as well as all of her friends from the fourth grade at St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic School in Fairfield who are here today, Mr. Speaker. And Mr. Speaker, what I can tell you about the fourth grade at St. Thomas is they still do certain things the old school way. I know they have a big test coming up in which they not only have to name all of the 50 states, not only name all of the 50 state capitols, but they still have to spell them correctly. So, we know they can do Hartford and Connecticut. The question is, what is the Capitol of Wyoming? Cheyenne is the Capitol of Wyoming. So, Mr. Speaker, I think they're --

Exactly. Exactly. So, Mr. Speaker, if the chamber could join me in a big, big round of applause for all the kids at St. Thomas Aquinas School. (applause)

We're doing just fine.

And I think we're going to be just fine with the deal that's been working.

So, we're very pleased with that. I rise for purposes of an announcement.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, our normal annual Dress Day is this Friday, May 1st. We're just doing $10 this year. You can give me cash, Venmo, whatever is easier for you. And hopefully, everyone will participate. And the money, as always, is going to a great cause. Thank you.

Flat $10. Flat tax. Okay. $10. And Venmo now. Getting up with the times, I see. Representative Shake from Stratford of the 120th, what do you got?

You may proceed, madam.

Thank you, Representative Shake. So, Denim Day is Wednesday. Dress Down Day is Friday. What will Saturday be? We shall see. Representative Santos of the 109th.

It's nice to see you too, sir.

You may proceed.

Thank you, Representative. Welcome, everybody from Danbury. I hope somebody is running city hall in your absence with all of you here, but it's nice to have you. Always working. Representative Zawistowski of the 61st, what do you have?

You may proceed.

Okay. I see no more announcements or introductions, so we will begin our work here with House Calendar 51.

The chair will recognize the Chairwoman, Representative Garibay. Take your time. You have the floor, madam. Should be good.

So, let's -- just move acceptance, if you don't mind. Yeah. Take your time. It's hard to go first. I know. Everybody's tired.

Question is acceptance of the Joint Committee's Favorable Report and passage of the bill. You may proceed, madam.

Will the Clerk please call LCO 4828. We'll mark it House Schedule "A".

Representative Garibay, you seek leave of the chamber to summarize the amendment. You may proceed, madam. It's up to you if you want to move it now.

Would you like to move the amendment, or would you like to talk about the amendment?

All right. So, she moved adoption. I'm looking at the ranking member. Is there objection to adopting the amendment by voice vote and then getting to the underlying debate? No objection? Okay. So, we're going to move. The motion is to adopt House "A". Seeing no objection to a voice vote, I'm going to try your minds. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. (MEMBERS): Aye.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Currently, the dental hygienists are able to work in facilities like senior centers and preschools without general oversight of a dentist. This bill expands that practice to private residences so dental hygienists can serve homebound patients that are currently underserved. We worked together as a group, thankful to the Dental Association, to COHI, and to others to work to bring together a bill that would serve an underserved population. I move adoption.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise in extremely, extremely strong support of this amendment, altered Bill 5140 before us today. And I'd like everybody in the chamber to give me a moment of listen right now because -- Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Silence is actually very important on this bill because this bill is an absolutely fantastic way to start a very sunny session day because what this bill does is it provides a truly innovative solution to a critical hole in our health care system, and that is as it relates to homebound patients. Now, it's come out of the Aging Committee, but it does apply to other homebound citizens as well. And it sets up an entire infrastructure to provide oral care, which as everybody knows through the COHI people, Connecticut Oral Health Initiative, the pathway to people's health is through their mouth. Oral health translates to ways to prevent heart disease and throat cancer and all kinds of maladies that become very, very chronic illnesses. By providing this preventive service on-site, we make an absolute wonderful and innovative breakthrough in the provision of not just dental health, but overall health in the State of Connecticut. I urge my colleagues to vote yea on this. We will obviously need to answer some questions about the mechanics of it, but it bears mention that this bill traveled a little bit of a circuitous route. It came to us and had to be amended into another bill very simply to keep it going to support the collaborative effort that went on between we and the legislature leadership, the folks in the Dental Association of Connecticut, and the Connecticut Oral Health Initiative. So, the work that went into this bill and the accommodations that were made to ease us into a transition where there doesn't have to be direct supervision by a dentist, but there does have to be a dentist available, has been quite remarkable. So, on that note, I'm going to open the floor, Madam Speaker, to whatever questions my colleagues might have or if the good chair would like to add to what I've just said. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. And this is one of those areas where you watch what you cosponsor at times because this bill, unfortunately, had, as the good ranking member mentioned, an interesting path. I believe it came out of Aging unanimous. Is that correct, through you, Madam Speaker?

Yes, it is. Through you, Madam Speaker.

And then, through you, Madam Speaker, was not brought up for a vote in public health. Is that true, through you, Madam Speaker?

Could you repeat that, please, through you, Madam Speaker?

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Appreciate it. And to the good chair. Normally, people say I talk too loud, so I was trying to tone it down. My good seatmate over here said, "Yeah, that's me." So, through you, Madam Speaker, I will speak a little louder, and this for the good chair. It's my understanding that it then was referred out to another committee. Is that correct, through you? And was that committee Public Health, Madam Speaker?

Yes. That is true. Through you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. And it was not voted on. Is that correct, through you, Madam Speaker?

No. It was not voted on. Through you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. And that's what I was saying. So, we used one of what people call, some call them dummy bills but we use another term also at times that allows us in this case to take advantage of a good bill. I would say that we can use that process to then move it through here and have discussion on it, and then hopefully move it on to the other chamber and get it passed. But through you, Madam Speaker, so this is essentially access to dental care. Is that correct, through you, Madam Speaker?

Yes. That is true. Through you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. And I have a fantastic dentist. I, obviously, go to their office. And I don't know why I get nervous going in there, you know, and going to the dentist. But some people would rather have the opportunity to be at home, get cared for at home like there are many other services that come into your home and care for you. So, this, through you, Madam Speaker, is an opportunity for somebody that may have disability, transportation issues, an opportunity to get dental care at home. Through you, Madam Speaker, is that correct?

Yes, it is. And we concentrated on the aging population being the Aging Committee because many of -- even if they're able to stand, which many are not. They are truly homebound. The transportation and everything is so expensive and so onerous that we felt that this was a population in need. Through you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. And I want to talk about that transportation component. So, years ago, I was a volunteer driver for our senior center. And people would call, hey, I have an appointment. I want to go shopping. I just want to take a ride, to be honest with you, to get out of the house. But at times, there wasn't drivers that could fill the need for people that had these appointments and they would miss them. And you know what happens at times when you miss a medical appointment, that sometimes there is a charge for that. So, it did not help them to not have that transportation. Through you, Madam Speaker, who is going to be doing these dental services for this aging population? Through you, Madam Speaker.

It will be a dental hygienist that has worked underneath dentists for over two years. Through you.

So, somebody that's actually been doing the work in a dental facility, has the training that can then go out and help this individual get their dental needs where they probably would go without is really the concern here. And as the good ranking member mentioned, that that is a health issue that, you know, gets exasperated as, you know, they don't get their care. Through you, Madam Speaker, is there any specific training, not in a dental area, that they would get, be able to go into a home? Because there are different things. Obviously, it's not the clean sterile environment that you may want. So, is there any additional training that is needed for them to go into a home, through you, Madam Speaker? I'm just thinking, you go in -- it's like an octopus over you, right? There are all these, you know, bells and whistles and drains and hoses and stuff. So, how does that work when it is an in-home service, through you, Madam Speaker?

First of all, public health will adopt regulations to regulate that. But I also want to mention that dental hygienists are already doing this in public facilities like senior centers, schools, etc. So, it's just adding another population. Through you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. And that is a great point. We have mobile services essentially that people go to. I know that there was one just held, for me, in Mansfield at a school. Wide open space where they came in, set up their chairs and did their work, and serviced a fantastic amount of individuals that would not typically get the care. And then there are ones for veterans as well that they actually open it up and ask veterans to come in and let them notify that that is an opportunity for them to get the dental care. So, thank you for bringing that example up because that's important that it wasn't in a medical setting. It was in an outside setting with a gym or something along that line. So, thank you for mentioning that. And you did mention that Department of Public Health will set some type of perimeters. Is that correct, through you, Madam Speaker?

Yes. That is exactly true. Through you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you. I think that's addressed in lines, I believe, 179 through 190. Is that correct, through you?

Yes. Through you, Madam Speaker.

Representative Ackert.

Thank you, Representative. Will you remark further on the bill as amended? Representative Klarides-Ditria of the 105th District, you have the floor.

Thank you, Representative. Will you remark on the bill as amended? Representative Hughes of the 135th District, you have the floor.

Thank you, Representative. Will you remark further on the bill as amended? Representative Pizzuto of the 71st District.

Please proceed.

Representative Garibay.

Representative Pizzuto.

Representative Garibay.

Representative Pizzuto.

Representative Garibay.

Okay. So, through you, Madam Chair, just for clarification.

Thank you. So, they would not bring something you would inhale or gases along those lines. Through you, Madam Chair.

No, Madam Speaker. Through you.

Sure. It's come to my attention sometimes through dentists or other constituents that the dentist may not approve of this for some reason. And my question to the good proponent, through you, Madam Chair, is, is it because of insurance billing? Is it because of, say, the lack of patient safety? Through you, Madam Chair.

Madam Speaker, we worked diligently with the Connecticut Dental Association to come up with an agreement that they felt comfortable with, along with COHI. And so, you know, it may be everybody came to the table and we are in agreement with this bill and what it does for our most vulnerable population. Through you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm just trying to find the line I have here. I think it's line 124 in the amendment. Through you, Madam Chair, it says that the statement attesting that he or she has satisfied continuing education requirements. Is that all it takes is that they sign that they took, say, the eight hours of training and all the other things required? Through you, Madam Chair.

Madam Speaker, it stays the same and does not change with this bill.

Representative Pizzuto.

Thank you, Representative. Will you remark further on the bill as amended? Representative Meskers of the 150th District, you have the floor.

Good afternoon.

Thank you, Representative. Will you remark further on the bill as amended? Representative Lanoue of the 45th District, you have the floor.

Good afternoon.

Please proceed.

Representative Garibay.

Representative Lanoue.

Representative Garibay.

Representative Lanoue.

Representative Garibay.

Representative Lanoue.

Representative Garibay.

Representative Lanoue.

Representative Garibay.

Representative Lanoue.

Representative Garibay.

Representative Lanoue.

Representative Garibay.

Representative Lanoue.

Representative Garibay.

Representative Lanoue.

Representative Garibay.

Representative Lanoue.

Representative Garibay.

Representative Lanoue.

Representative Garibay.

Representative Lanoue.

Thank you, Representative. Will you remark further on the bill as amended? Representative Nolan of the 39th District, you have the floor.

Please proceed.

Thank you. Representative. Will you remark further on this bill as amended? Representative Anderson of the 62nd District, you have the floor.

Thank you, Representative. Will you remark further on this bill as amended? Will you remark further on this bill as amended? Representative Bolinsky of the 106th District, you have the floor.

Thank you, Representative. Will you remark further on this bill? Will you remark further on this bill as amended? If not, will staff and guests please come to the well of the House? Will the members please take your seats? The machine will be open.

Have all the members voted? Have all the members voted? Will you please check the board to determine if your vote is properly cast? If all the members have voted, the machine will be locked. And the Clerk will take a tally. And the Clerk, please announce the tally.

The bill as amended passes. (gavel) Do we have any announcements? Representative Exum of the 19th District, you may proceed.

Thank you, Representative.

And welcome to the Links. Representative Anderson of the 62nd district, you have the floor.

Thank you, Representative. Representative Johnson of the 143rd District, you have the floor.

Please proceed.

Thank you. Can we please stand and have a moment of silence? (gavel) Thank you, Representative. Will the Clerk please call Calendar No. 258?

Representative Emmanuel Sanchez, you have the floor.

The question before the chamber is acceptance of the Joint Committee's Favorable Report and a passage of the bill. Representative Sanchez, you have the floor.

Will the Clerk please call LCO 4985, which will be designated House Amendment Schedule "A".

The Representative seeks leave of the chamber to summarize the amendment. Is there objection to summarization? Is there objection? Hearing none, Representative Sanchez, you may proceed with the summarization.

The question before the chamber is adoption of House Amendment Schedule "A". Will you remark on the amendment? Representative Weir of the 55th District, you have the floor.

Will you remark further on the amendment before us? Will you remark further on the amendment before us? If not, is there objection to a voice vote? Hearing none, I will try your minds. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. (MEMBERS): Aye.

Thank you for that. I think I'd like to ask my colleague to take us through the bill, if you wouldn't mind, section by section, and we can go through it together. I would like to note that there are, I don't know. What are we at? 75 sections now. The bill has taken a lot of twists and turns. We're probably at our sixth iteration since Friday, and maybe fourth since yesterday. So, I think the chamber's going to have to give us a little bit of latitude, or at least I'll ask for that as we're going to go through this kind of methodically to make sure that we are on the same page. So, actually, you know, what I'll do is my colleague, the good proponent of the bill can take -- I just want to make a few notes that, you know, as we're thinking about discussing this bill, 3,682 lines, 118 pages, and 75 sections. And it's, you know, concerning to me. We had probably 75 different bills come out of Labor. And in this bill, there's a bunch of labor bills, but I think we'll also see that there are a ton of other concepts in here. Lot of stuff in here that has nothing to do with labor. Lot of stuff here that I think were -- a lot of the concessions were made as a gift to Labor, Christmas in April. And not only from members of this body and upstairs who had input, but also the Governor who I think tipped the scales with his input on certain sections. So, I want to note that that the policies we're following here are not what I see is not in the best interest of the taxpayers. And when we talk about affordability, we talk about growth, job growth, economic growth, there's nothing in this bill that I think is going to move the scale, move the needle at all meaningfully to get us to a point where we're going to be more economically competitive. Actually, recently, a wise man referred to this bill as Frankenstein. It's like getting the implementer last year 10 days early. We have topics in this bill that are going to cover breastfeeding, menopause, cranes, not the bird, the equipment. We have lobsters, carpentry, custodians, firefighters, both paid and volunteer, police officers, home care employees, veterans, hospitals, higher education, the board of regents. There were a couple articles recently about some activities happening at the board of regents. That's interesting. We have the chancellor resigned recently after the former chancellor had a year long no show, half a million dollar pay compensation package. So, we'll be talking about the board of regents. We will also, indeed, we will be discussing the pay and benefit ranges on job offerings. Talking about utility poles and double utility poles. But this year, there's no pay for striking workers, so we won't get that this year. But this is really a mix, and it's a shame because there's a lot of this bill, probably 80% plus, that's a positive. I mean, there are a lot of bills in here that I think would be unanimous if run on their own. And it's a shame that we put them alongside bills that don't stand a chance of getting unanimous support if they were run on their own. So, I think this is a slight to the taxpayer, to the citizens who want to have us debate on topics that are germane. We don't have that. And instead, we've gone the way of doing the work of collective bargaining. We've done that in this room on behalf of organized labor to some extent. So, I want to just touch real quick on the positive points of this bill. We have work on veterans, workforce development. There's workers' comp clarification, services for people with disabilities, and also support and clarification training, certification for fire, police, EMS, and first responders. So, I think with that, I'll jump into the question section by section. And as I asked, a little bit of latitude to go through these bills because we are on several iterations just since Friday. So, to the good proponent of the bill, if we start with Section 1, can you describe to the people in the room and the general public, what goes on in Section 1? Through you, Madam Speaker.

Through you, Madam Speaker. I will be yielding my time to Representative Kaitlin Shake to answer these questions on Section 1. Through you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. If the good gentleman could please repeat your question.

Yes. Through you, Madam Speaker, to the good proponent of the bill. Can you just give a description of Section 1? Generally speaking, what does that do, through you?

Thank you. Through you, Madam Speaker. Section 1 is intended to protect health care workers and to update language that currently protects those who work in education when they are assaulted while they are at work. The current situation is in health care. When health care workers are assaulted, they go through workers' comp to file their claim. And in that process, currently, once it is approved, those workers would be receiving 75% of a 52 week look back as opposed to what is in current policy since the 1970s that protects educators in a classroom where if they are assaulted by a child, they have a pathway of being able to be paid up to 100% of what their lost wages would be because they are out due to injury on the job. So, within Section 1, we are hoping to be able to pass this entire bill, but it would clarify and provide a pathway for health care workers when they are assaulted. And just to be clear to anyone who's listening, it is any assault. It is not if a worker is walking and there's water on the floor. It is if they are assaulted. And that worker would go through the workers' comp system. And in doing so, once they are approved, because it's possible that it could be denied, but if that worker is approved, then finally, health care workers who have the highest rate of workplace violence out of any labor sector right now, which has been a growing trend for over 10 years, would not have to worry while they're trying to heal and go through rehabilitation to get back to work of how they're going to be able to pay their bills. So, that was the intention of being able to update and be able to financially protect workers as other labor sectors currently do. Through you, Madam Chair.

And thank you for that explanation. I think one of -- again, we've got 70+ sections here. I want to make sure that we go through and understand with all the changes. To the good proponent of the bill, yeah, I am unaware that the original language this bill passed out of committee, Labor Committee, nine to four. Nine in favor, four opposed. Has this seen any significant change, the language of this bill, since committee or perhaps since yesterday, through you?

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Through you, yes. There are two major changes that I would like to respond to. One is that in the original language of this bill, there was language around workers, health care workers being able to utilize workers' comp to file their injury claim, but then also to go through a private right of action to sue the employer or facility for that 25% gap. That language is no longer in the bill. And through a compromise, through industry stakeholders, we eliminated that language of private right of action and agreed that we would utilize workers' comp as the primary way of how a worker would be required to navigate this part of that process. The second change, answering the question, is that now, through language as of last night, there is -- I just want to turn the page -- Lines 91, I believe, through 93, health care facilities or institutions does not include any facility or institution operated by the state except the University of Connecticut Health Center. Through you.

And thank you for that explanation. I think, again, that helps clarify where we stand in my mind on Section 2. I'm sorry, excuse me, Section 1. Already moving on in my head. But I think the -- I appreciate that explanation. And if we go on to Section 2, Madam Speaker, can the good proponent, whoever that will be, explain what Section 2 does, through you?

Representative Farrar, you have the floor.

Representative Weir, can you please repeat the question?

Representative Farrar.

Thank you, Representative. Representative Weir.

Representative Sanchez.

Representative Martinez, you have the floor.

Representative Weir.

Representative Martinez.

Representative Weir.

Representative Sanchez.

Representative Weir.

Representative Sanchez.

Representative Weir.

Please proceed.

Representative Sanchez.

Representative Wilson.

Representative Weir.

Representative Sanchez.

Representative Weir.

Representative Sanchez.

Representative Weir.

Representative Sanchez.

Representative Weir.

Representative Sanchez.

Representative Weir.

Representative Sanchez.

Representative Leeper.

Good afternoon.

Representative Weir.

Representative Leeper.

Representative Weir.

Representative Leeper.

Representative Weir.

Representative Leeper.

Representative Weir.

Representative Sanchez.

Representative Weir.

Representative Sanchez.

Excuse me, 4985. So, I'm not putting you at --

Through you, Mr. Speaker, can the good ranking member repeat his question?

Yes. So, back at Section 9, and we may be just off on the LCO a little bit, but I believe this section, the two versions should jive up. And if we don't, we'll get there. We'll make them work. I'm looking for some examples of a covered location, and that's subsection three in the definitions right below contractor. So, it's right towards the beginning of Section 9. What's the definition? Give me some examples of a covered location, please.

Through you, Mr. Speaker, to the good ranking member, multifamily residential building or complex with 50 or more units, commercial center or complex or office building occupying more than 75,000 square feet, municipal office buildings or facility, public or nonprofit school, cultural center or complex, including a museum, convention center, or arena, or performance hall. A shopping mall could be included. A bank branch, a train station, a warehouse might be several indications of a covered location. Through you.

Thank you for that answer. And I'm going to ask a couple of questions to the proponent of the bill, which we have not discussed. Would love an answer, whether you can get clarification. Given those definitions, through you, Mr. Speaker, would that include a zoo or an aquarium meeting the square foot qualifications of a building of more than 75,000 square feet, through you?

Through you, Mr. Speaker, I believe that is correct.

Thank you for that answer. I don't have a ton of question. I will come back to that. But while I'm in that paragraph, I would like the people in this room to understand that a covered location, you know, it covers a commercial building of 75,000 square feet or more. So, we're back to the warehouses, the Targets, Walmarts, with custodial staff. We're back to Amazon, back to warehousing. That's included. Our cities and towns are included. Municipal town hall. If you don't have town employees doing the custodial work, or there are service contracts to maintain the grounds, your landscapers in Hebron, regional board of education. We have a local landscaping company, commercial landscaping company doing our landscaping. If that contract changes to a new service provider, this bill would kick in. And under certain circumstances -- Well, I'm going to tell you what's a covered location, then we'll talk about what happens under this scenario. Also, in addition to the zoo, the aquarium, something like the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford Stage, the Bushnell, all covered. They're all included in this. If they have service providers, whether in-house or subbed out through a third party under a contract, it applies to them. This is our nonprofits. Some of these are nonprofits that own these buildings or operate out of these buildings. Doesn't say you have to own the building. You just have to occupy the building. So, this could be a nonprofit that rents a commercial building but is responsible for the maintenance staff. This bill will trigger that. Talks about a pharmaceutical lab. Got to go back to the new language, because I know this changed. Bradley International Airport. Train station. So, those of you in New Haven. I know we've got a couple people here who take the train back and forth. So, the question -- we talked about what does this section do? We're talking about full-time employees. So, I'm going to give a scenario. If you've got a janitorial contract to clean these facilities, and for whatever reason, it could be a price issue, could be a change of ownership of the building. Maybe the subcontractor is doing a lousy job. They're not cleaning to the expectations of the building owner or person occupying that building. A new company gets the contract. Let's just say somebody buys the custodial company. They are automatically, through this legislation, they have to assume the employees of the existing service provider. Okay? Somebody in here decides they want to buy a building, you now own the employees with that building. You buy a business, you own the employees with that business, which is usually handled voluntarily. Most of the time, it's beneficial to both sides. We shouldn't be legislating that here. As I said, what if the employees are doing a lousy job? They lost the contract because they're overpriced or the service is poor or they're rude to the customers, and now the new person taking over that contract is potentially stuck with debts for employees for 90 days. And then you have to give them an interview. You have to let them know why you're letting them go if it's not for cause. So, to me, this was, I appreciate the changes that have been made because there were certain recognitions that changes needed to happen, but the real change for this section is to cross it out and get rid of it because it doesn't work. It also says that the company taking over the contract, what the successor company is taking over from the -- What do we call the other employer? The employer who loses the contract, terminated contractor. If the successor employer has their own employees, they don't have to assume the employees of the terminated contractor. So, those employees are out. So, to the good proponent of the Labor Bill, we discussed this question. I believe I asked you this yesterday. If the successor employer takes over the building, the contract from the terminated employer, who is verifying and this does not apply if the successor employer has their own employees. Who's going to prove? Who's going to verify that the successor employer actually has the employees to take over the contract? Through you. Is there anything in this bill that talks about verifying or penalties if they're not being truthful, through you?

Through you, Mr. Speaker, to the good ranking member, I believe it would be up to that employee and their representation, through you.

Through you, Mr. Speaker, which employee or representation? Just for clarification.

Through you, Mr. Speaker, if that said contractor did not move forward with the employees that were carried over -- Well, not carried over, that were with that subcontractor that they were taking over, the individual will be responsible to acknowledge that they no longer have an employment, and could also be represented in that capacity, through you.

Thank you. I appreciate the answer. This is one of those real world, what if gotcha questions that I maintain my personal opinion, my personal position is that there's no way to verify. If I'm the successor contractor and I take over a contract and I fire all the existing employees as is my right as of today, it may not be the best practice, and most of the time, the employees stay with the building. It's industry practice that this happens voluntarily all the time. But here we're legislating it and mandating it. But back to my point, if I buy that business building, I take over the contract, and I have no employees, and I fire the existing employees, there's no way to prove that. There's no way for anybody to prove that I didn't have the employees. There's no teeth. There's no penalties. Maybe that's by design. And we're not doing anything here, and this section does nothing. But that's why is it in here? So, I would encourage any of my colleagues in this room, either side of the aisle prove me wrong by the time this debate is over. Prove me wrong tomorrow. Say you're wrong Weir. That there's any teeth to this for somebody coming in without their employees. That is going to be business as usual. Nothing's going to change. Oh, I see Representative Jacobson waving. I want somebody to prove me wrong. That doesn't end up in court. Yes. I'm sure you could sue, and there'd be some long prolonged thing. But objective proof at the time that that happens, that that's going to be effective, I maintain there isn't any in this bill. So, like I said, if this applies to our nonprofits, I appreciate the effort. I'm not going to be, you know, going on and on and on in this section. This probably is the most egregious section of the entire bill because it really attacks our at-will status. We are an at-will employment state. I'm not an attorney, but I would say that when you force a company to take over the employees of another company, we have attacked that at-will status. And so, the only saving grace for me being offended by this even being put in here is the fact that I really think it does nothing other than send a bad message to business and industry and investment, people looking to come into the state and going, "Man, I got to buy a company. I got to take over the employees and keep them for 90 days whether they are terrible or not because the state of Connecticut says I have to?" That's anti competition. That's uncompetitive. That's not capitalism. It's Marxism. So, that's a covered location. Talked about some of the industries this could affect this. I touched on janitorial, landscaping. It could be at an apartment complex if they've got pool maintenance, could be a gym, large gym. They've got a pool. You got people coming in and out with different contracts. Could be the pest control company, irrigation supplier, all sorts of service providers. And as I'm told anecdotally, this bill came to life because some employees at the convention center or the science center lost their contract and complained, and here we have a bill because they were not afforded a guaranteed job. I got news for you. There are very few people in the world where there's a guaranteed job, and yet we got a whole section of a bill for a special interest. Mr. Speaker, may I have just a minute to catch my spot here?

Please proceed.

Representative Sanchez.

Representative Weir.

Representative Sanchez.

Mr. Speaker?

Representative Weir.

Okay. The chamber will come back to order.

Yep. Representative Weir.

Representative Sanchez.

Representative Weir.

Representative Sanchez.

Representative Weir.

Representative Sanchez.

Representative Weir.

Representative Sanchez.

Representative Weir.

Representative Sanchez.

Representative Weir.

Representative Sanchez.

Representative Weir.

Representative Sanchez.

Representative Weir.

Representative Sanchez.

Representative Weir.

Representative Sanchez.

Representative Boyd.

Representative Weir.

Representative Boyd.

Representative Weir.

Representative Sanchez.

Representative Wilson.

Representative Weir.

Representative Wilson.

Representative Weir.

Representative Sanchez.

Representative Wilson.

Representative Weir.

Representative Wilson.

Representative Weir.

Representative Sanchez.

Representative Boyd.

Representative Weir.

Representative Boyd.

Representative Weir.

Representative Boyd.

Representative Weir.

Representative Boyd.

Representative Weir.

Representative Sanchez.

Representative Weir.

Representative Sanchez.

Representative Weir.

Representative Sanchez.

Representative Weir.

Representative Sanchez.

Representative Weir.

Representative Sanchez.

Representative Weir.

Representative Sanchez.

Representative Weir.

Representative Sanchez.

Through you, Mr. Speaker. The navigators will be taking the training. Through you.

Okay. Yes. No. Thank you. Yes. The training shall be provided to regional workforce navigators. I apologize for missing that. Thank you for that explanation. And given that, we can move on to Section 29, please, through you, Mr. Speaker.

Through you, Mr. Speaker, to the good ranking member, Section 29 deals with a working group of co-instruction teacher models. So, this would be a working group to study the effectiveness and benefits of co-instruction teaching models that would allow non certified people to teach along certified teachers, through you.

Thank you very much. It almost seems I got that little earlier mixed up with the externships, but, yeah, I think that's great to have the opportunity to bring some experience and perspective from outside the classroom into the classroom. I've been to several events where they invite people in from the business community to go talk to students and just try to generate interest and see what the kids are interested about other than sitting in the classroom and staring at their cell phones. So, I think this is a great proposal. Glad to see it in here. And I'm good to move on to Section 30, if the good proponent would -- Through you, Mr. Speaker, if the good proponent can take me through Section 30 and maybe how it has changed from where it was to where it is now, through you.

Three, Mr. Speaker, I will yield my time to Representative Wilson. Through you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Through you. So, this section, originally, during committee was focused on reasonable accommodations for conditions of menopause. One of the things that we have learned since the public hearing, but also our committee process what has changed here is, it already under case law and other circumstances is included in the reasonable accommodations. And so, this section 30 and 31 have changed to allow for an employer pollster by DOL to be created that really spells out all of the ADA and reasonable accommodations to employees with menopause and other reasonable accommodations. And for them to help with creating some type of a model workplace policy that employers can use. But also, the big piece here that we learned through testimony and the committee process was educational material to really help employers and employees understand the various reasonable accommodations that we have today. So, through you.

Thank you for that great explanation. And I think this is an example of a topic that came, and you know, I can speak for myself and a couple of my colleagues trying to figure out how you would best tackle this from an enforcement or, you know, yes, from an enforcement. How do you enforce this type of stuff in the workplace? And kudos to the Chair and the Co-Chair for recognizing through their research that the topic of reasonable accommodations for menopause was already covered under federal law and federal guidelines. And so, using the federal guidelines, we're able to create, you know, more of an educational scenario rather than an enforcement mechanism, and I'm glad to see that. And I think at the end of the day, you want to make reasonable accommodations. You want the employees and the employers to work it out. Given this scenario, I think we've given them some guidelines, some information, education, and hopefully, they're able to make those accommodations mutually, and it does not have to be, you know, adversarial in the process. So, obviously, good employers want good employees and vice versa. And so, I think this certainly is a helpful positive way to achieve that. Thank you to the good proponent. And I'd like to go on to, I guess, are we on to Section 30? I guess we probably could tie up Section 31. I don't know if the good proponent got 31 in that explanation as well. Through you.

Through you, Mr. Speaker, to the good ranking member, 10 and 31 were combined. Through you. I apologize.

Thank you. Thank you very much. I only have, like, nine sheets I'm working from over here, but appreciate that clarification. So, in that case, we can move on to Section 32, if you don't mind. And please take me through -- Mr. Speaker, if the good proponent, would take me through the Section 32 and kind of where it's been, where we are today, and what the section does, through you.

Through you, Mr. Speaker, I'll be yielding my time to Representative Gilchrest. Through you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Good afternoon. Through you to the good ranking member, current state law does require an employer to make reasonable efforts to provide a room or location for an employee to express milk. This expands that to -- Maybe I'll say, but under current law, an employee needs to do that during an already designated lunchtime or break. This would ask for reasonable accommodations to be made with the employer for additional break time to express milk. Through you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you for that explanation. I am appreciative of the good proponent. Meeting with me, the language as of yesterday didn't exactly state that, and I think where we are now is was the intent of the proponent and certainly my intent of reasonable policy. And so, I'm appreciative of where the language is today. You know, my wife had to work after having our three children, and it's you're tap dancing around trying to work and be effective at your job and also, be taking care of your family. And so, it's a challenge, and I think this legislation is going to make it a little bit easier and clarify for the employees and the employers what the expectations are. And I think if everybody's acting in good faith reasonably, you get a reasonable outcome. So, thank you for that. I am good to move on to Section 33. If the good proponent can take me through 33.

Through you, Mr. Speaker, to the good ranking member, Section 33 has to do with hospital staffing committees and nurse staffing plans. That being said, Department of Public Health and an organization that represents hospitals are required to make a onetime report concerning hospital wide variations and unit level variations of staffing and report it to the Public Health and Labor and Public Employees Committees, through you.

Thank you for that explanation. And once again, Section 33, I'm appreciative of where it started to where it has ended up. I think this is certainly reasonable in comparison to where we started because, you know, health care is an incredibly important industry. We want to be doing what we can to protect patients and also, you know, encourage the investment in our hospitals and our health care systems. So, thank you for that explanation. Through you, Mr. Speaker, I'm ready to go on Section 34. If the good proponent can please explain what Section 34 does.

Through you, Mr. Speaker, I will be yielding my time to Representative Wilson.

Through you, Mr. Speaker, Section 34 focuses on requiring DPH within its available appropriations to administer a grant program for CNA training programs in the Greater Hartford and rural communities. And it also allows it to maximize federal funds such as that of the Rural Health Program, through you.

Thank you very much for that explanation. I think the proponent did a good job of explaining that. I don't have any further questions on that. I believe I'm ready to move on to Section 35. If the good proponent, Chair of Labor, could take us through Section 35 through you, Mr. Speaker.

Through you, Mr. Speaker, I'll be yielding my time to Representative Foster, Chairwoman of the Veterans Committee.

Through you, Mr. Speaker, does the good gentleman have a question, or would he like a summary?

To the good proponent, through you, Mr. Speaker, I think a summary would be great.

Through you, Mr. Speaker, Sections 35 through 37 of this bill originated in the Veterans and Military Affairs Committee as a concept called troops to traits. The idea of these pieces of legislation are to string together what is sort of a cobbled process related to improving employment pathways for members of veterans who live in our state. We have a couple of resources that exist already, including a wonderful website through the Department of Labor. But there are a lot of resources that are available to veterans that were not yet available to national guard members who are sometimes seeking gainful employment outside of their military service. And so, this bill does three things. In section 35, it requires the Department of Labor to make some significant updates to the labor website that would improve availability of resources for employments for veterans, and that's to be done in conjunction with the Department of Veterans Affairs Commissioner. And the Department of Veterans Affairs Commissioner sends a periodic email out as it is to veterans and veterans advocacy groups in the state. And so, updates to those websites are meant to be shared out with the veterans community who might be seeking employment and finding out resources that way. Section 36 is an expansion of an existing but underfunded program through the military department called the Employee Assistance Program. And this program is meant to help national guards members, and now hopefully veterans as well seek gainful employment outside of their military service. And we're hoping that in conjunction with collaborators at DOL and the VA that the military department could host an annual career fair. And in addition, we make recommendations. We ask the Department of Economic and Community Development to develop legislative recommendations to improve employment options for veterans and national guard members in the state. A lot of these sections were done in strong collaboration with members of the trade unions, members of the building trades, and also some significant collaboration between the Department of Labor, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and a variety of different groups that are really interested in seeing a way to improve veterans' employment and national guard members' employment in the state. And this came by request of the Connecticut National Guard Association, and we're happy to see it included in this great bill as an option to help our veterans and national guard members in the state. Through you, Mr. Speaker.

That is a terrific explanation. I appreciate the good Chairwoman for the explanation. I have no further questions on those sections. I would love to now, Mr. Speaker, jump to section 38 if the good proponent of Labor can walk me through that. Through you.

Through you, Mr. Speaker, Section 38 has to do with paycheck transparency and would require certain employers to create a guide for employees on pay codes for overtime and pay differentials. Through you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you very much for that explanation, and I seen this bill come through the past couple of years. I actually voted for it in committee last year. This year, thought it was a little bit onerous, but I appreciate that there had been some clarifications. Is the good proponent of Labor able to offer many of the clarifications that we've seen since this came out of committee this year, if he's able to, through you, Mr. Speaker.

Through you, Mr. Speaker, to the good ranking member, I believe we cleared up how many of those codes would be required to be featured on a paycheck on a website. And I believe the conclusion that we came to and confirmed with our colleagues on the other side would ask that employers keep up to 10 pay codes on those paychecks or on those websites or however they communicate their pay rates, through you.

Thank you for that explanation, and certainly, this is an excellent practice. I really think that most employers are doing this, you know, the vast majority, especially if you use a third party payroll service which is allowed here. We've acknowledged that in this bill that if you're using an ADP or a Paychex, they're already doing this. They've got these pay codes already called out. And I think we changed the language to allow for the fact that they use a third party company employee portal, and that wasn't addressed in the original language. So, acknowledging that not every company has their own payroll website, but that an employee can log in and see these codes easily accessible. And I think, you know, we clarified the number that if you're at a company that you have 200 of these pay codes, you have to post the most common 10. And if those common 10 change in and out, you don't have to post 11 or 12. You can take the other ones off. And for a company that may have one or two, you're not required, obviously, to have 10. If you only have two or three, you post what you have. So, I think this is a great compromise. It's going to give the employees that clarification visibility that they're looking for and asking for in their paychecks without any undue or minimum burden on a company. Very reasonable legislation. Mr. Speaker, I'm happy with that section. I would like to move on to 39, please.

Through you, Mr. Speaker, that question will be better answered by Representative Boyd, Chair of the Public Safety Committee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This section has been something that's been advocated for by members of this chamber, including Representative Rochelle, as well as DESP as an agency. It straightforward creates grant program to begin junior programs for firefighting, to begin the pipeline in high schools and other like-minded groups. Through you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you very much for that explanation to the good Chair of Public Safety, and I think that's a great initiative. I'm certainly satisfied with the explanation. And it's too bad we don't have all these sections in alignment so that they can stand up once and not, like, six times. You know? You look like a Whack-A-Mole getting up and down there. So, would love the good proponent of Labor to move to 39 through you, Mr. Speaker.

Excuse me. Section 40. We already did 39.

Through you, Mr. Speaker, Section 40 has to do with the exemption of minor league baseball players from our wage and our laws. Through you.

Thank you for that explanation. And to the good proponent of Labor, am I explaining it that it's not that the minor league baseball players are being paid less than minimum wage, but it's a fact that they're reporting to the facility maybe for batting practice or for stretching or for conditioning at different times and many times throughout the day. And the way that the contract reads, they theoretically would have to punch in and out every two seconds for some of their activities. So, this streamlines to and aligns with other Major League Baseball type agreements, through you.

Through you to the good ranking member, that is absolutely correct. They're not trying to circumvent fair pay. It's about, I can say, codifying a compensation structure that players themselves negotiated through their unions, through you.

Thank you very much for that explanation, and I'm good with that. I would love for the good proponent of Labor to take us through Sections 41 through 43 inclusively, whoever wants to take those.

Through you, Mr. Speaker, that question will be better answered by Representative Boyd. Through you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So, the Whack-A-Mole, as the gentleman said, continues. This bill was House Bill 5455, which is the result of comprehensive work partnering with the University of Connecticut, as well as other stakeholders to continue to grow and substantially reinforce public safety on campus. The UConn Police Department is a unique setup where they patrol our state's flagship university and all the things that happen on a large college campus as well as all of the regional campuses that exist around the state. So, they're not like a municipal department where they're in one place. They literally have a large campus and multiple things. They're struggling to retain officers. They have not been at a full strength for some time. And so, working collaboratively with the university, with the union, as well as other stakeholders, we've built a recruitment and retention package for the university in order to be able to have experienced officers be interested and remain at the university going forward. So, this section of the bill, and the subsequent Public Safety bill is a result of those efforts, through you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you very much for the answer and the collaboration. I appreciate that I have no more further questions. And through you, Mr. Speaker, I'm ready to go on to Sections 44 to 47, which involve utility poles and W Utility poles.

Through you, Mr. Speaker, Sections 44 through 47 reflect SB 421 that came out of ENT in which-- And it creates a process including notice requirements, deadlines, and penalties for public utility pole users and owners to transfer their wires and equipment from existing poles to replacement poles and then remove double duty poles where the existing pole and its replacement are alongside or attached to each other by October 1, 2027. Through you.

Thank you for that answer. And this is one of those sections where there's been quite a lot of back and forth over the past week. So, can the good proponent give any update? It's my understanding that you got a lot of parties that are involved. You've got the telecom. You've got telephone company. You've got the power company. Different entities own the poles. Different entities own the communication and wiring that are on the poles and maintenance. It's a fairly complicated setup. Can the good proponent tell the people in the room if the people who work in those industries were able to come to an agreement and are satisfied with the outcome, where do we get? Because as of yesterday or a couple days ago, that wasn't the case. They weren't in alignment, through you.

Through you, Mr. Speaker, can the good ranking member repeat his question, through you?

Sure. To the good proponent of the bill, do you reasonably believe that the people, the stakeholders, the utility providers were able to get together. My understanding, there were three or four different providers that had different ways to attack this. Had they gotten together, or are they basically in alignment for the where we ended up with this legislation, through you?

Through you, Mr. Speaker, thank you to the good ranking member for clarifying the question for me and repeating it. I believe that is absolutely the case after talking to several individuals from both sides who said they were satisfied with the language that is currently before us today. Through you.

Thank you very much. I think it's always important that we're listening to all the stakeholders because something, that decision that we make in here may affect one positively and another negatively. So, it's always great when the stakeholders can get together, figure out what's going to work best for their industry. So, I appreciate that answer. Mr. Speaker, can the good proponent of Labor talk about Section 48, veterans information posting? Through you.

Through you, Mr. Speaker, I believe, Representative Foster can answer that. Through you.

Through you, Mr. Speaker, the good Representative's question can be answered. This is a simple summary of services and resources available to veterans employees that will be posted on the Department of Labor website. And this section simply requires employers to post this poster as we do many other employer rights pages within their place of employment, so it's easily viewable and accessible to a veteran who might be looking for resources. Through you, Mr. Speaker.

Okay. Thank you. And just for a point of clarification, not to put the good proponent of Veterans on the spot, it was my understanding that the DOL and the Chief Manufacturing Officer had to post these benefits on their website, and it was permissive for employers to download and display. Can we get that clarification, through you?

Through you, Mr. Speaker, that is correct.

Thank you very much for that answer. I just want to make sure we weren't putting a mandate on employers, and this is certainly going to be a benefit to all involved, especially the veterans. So, thank you for that answer and clarification. And I'm ready to move on to Section 49. And, well, if 49 and 50 go together, fine to have those. If the same person is, go right from 49 to 50, through you, Mr. Speaker.

Through, Mr. Speaker, that question will be better answered by Representative Boyd. Through you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Through you. Yes. These two sections, the Connecticut Fire Academy utilizes a number of mostly part time fire instructors who are not accounted for in our current system of job classification. So, this measure in effect directs DESP, the state fire administrator, which oversees the academy to work with DAS and create a job classification that best fits these individuals. The next section is exactly what it says. It's very straightforward that we know we have an issue with health insurance for retired fire and police before other programs kick in. And this directs the state comptroller to do a study and bring back recommendations to this group through you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you. Thank you for that explanation. Very well done. I appreciate it. I'm satisfied. No further questions on those sections. I would like to ask the good proponent to move forward with explaining what is Section 51 do, Mr. Speaker.

Through, Mr. Speaker, that question will be better answered by Representative Wilson. Through you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So, Sections 51 and 52 deal with unemployment for paraeducators where to the extent of the federal law, this will just require boards of education to provide DOL with a list of pairs who have reasonable assurance of returning for the next school year. The purpose is to help DOL determine UI eligibility for Paris a little bit quicker, through you.

And thank you for that explanation. And I know that Representative Wilson has a breadth of knowledge about this, and it took a little while for me to get my arms around it. But it's my understanding that by going through this process, it's actually going to avoid potential unemployment insurance fraud or mistakes. You'll catch the mistakes quicker, which has the potential and likelihood to lead to lower unemployment insurance exposure to our boards of Ed and our municipalities. Is that correct, through you?

Through you, Mr. Speaker. Yes.

Thank you very much. So, that we just covered 51 and 52, did we? And we're good. Thank you. Okay. I'd like to move on to Section 53 regarding state police highway construction pay, through you, Mr. Speaker.

Through you, Mr. Speaker, that question would be better answered by Representative Boyd. Through you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This section comes to us by request this Connecticut State Police Union with the consent of DESP and the DOT. Currently, when our state troopers do highway projects, the law says that there's a fixed amount set through DAS. However, over the last decade or so, there's been an MOU between the state police, the union, and DOT setting those fixed rates. What this piece of the measure does is in effect directs them to set a rate for a period of time that is appropriate for work that state troopers do with DOT. It relies just solely on those pieces, not private sector jobs, that type of thing as well. Through you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you very much for that explanation. I have no further questions on Section 53. I'd like to move on to 54. Mr. Speaker, through you.

Through you, Mr. Speaker, Section 54 have to do with SB 471 that came out of GAE. It specifically has to do with the journeyman rate, prevailing wage, and daily logs, through you.

Okay. And so, just a little bit more. I understand it has to deal with those, but what does the bill do in a little bit more detail if the good proponent wouldn't mind explaining that?

Absolutely. Through you, Mr. Speaker, to the good ranking member. So, the addition to the journeyman rate is to Section D of this latest LCO. And so, when we changed that collective bargaining agreement to the prevailing wage rate, they all ask questions about fringe rates, and other prevailing wage. You can pay registered apprentices at decreased base wage. However, you still must pay the full fringe. Some CBAs already allowed for a decreased fringe, but not on prevailing wage. Apprentices could still be paid a percentage of a journeyman rate. We're only talking about a fringe on prevailing wage projects. And then I would say, to that, we are not changing the base wage. We're just making a clarification, through you.

Thank you very much for that explanation, and I understand what this is doing. This was the section that was put in over the weekend, and we saw this bill came through Labor as part of a larger proposal. This was initially suggested that this was going to improve safety because in the event that you had people signing in or failing to sign in, and then if there was in a workplace incident, a worksite incident, they wanted an easy way to account for everybody who was on that job. And, you know, I don't know that that does that. I understand, you know, we're keeping track of the wages. I understand what the bill does. As far as how does it improve safety, I think that's suspect. I understand the reporting. I also noticed that there are penalties for failing to report correctly. So, I have concerns about this section. Not going to spend all day on it, other than to say that it was part of a larger -- Everybody wants workforce safety, worker safety, workplace safety. Nobody wants somebody going missing on a job unaccounted for or injured on a job. I just struggle to see how this piece of legislation is going to make anybody safer. So, thank you. I'm ready to move on to Section 55 if the good proponent of the bill would take me through Section 55, please.

And 56, perhaps, whatever.

Representative Weir.

Representative Sanchez.

Representative Weir.

Representative Sanchez.

Representative Weir.

Representative Sanchez.

Representative Weir.

Representative Sanchez.

Representative Haddad.

Representative Weir.

Representative Sanchez.

Representative Kavros DeGraw, you have the floor.

Representative Weir.

Representative Sanchez.

Representative Rochelle.

Representative Weir.

Representative Sanchez.

Representative Bumgardner.

Representative Weir.

Representative Sanchez.

Representative Boyd.

Representative Weir.

Representative Sanchez.

Representative Weir.

Thank you, sir. Do you care to remark further on the bill as amended? Do you care to remark further? Representative Ackert, you have the floor, sir.

Representative Sanchez.

Representative Sanchez.

Representative Shake.

Yes. Mr. Speaker, I have notes of each section and who Rep is. So, should I be directing it to the Rep or through the Chair for my questions?

Should I through you, but should I specify who --

And it was just -- Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So, just in Section 1, I did see and although I agree with the concept of the workman's component here, were there discussions and I did see some pushback by saying that wait a minute, this is a potentially additional cost for workman's comp insurance to extend this to a 100%. And were those concerns addressed with the language we have in front of us through you, Mr. Speaker?

Thank you. Through you, Mr. Speaker. So, there is a potential increase to the workers' comp rate. However, discussions have been had where one of the very important ways that we can reduce the workers' comp rate to company, organization, health care institution, etc., is making sure that there are worker safety things that are happening, which could mean in health care, we actually have metal detectors at every single hospital entryway, or we have safe staffing in all of our health care facilities, which would help reduce the risk to the employee. God forbid emergencies will happen. Right? But one of the ways that calculation of how that workers' comp rate is done is it reduces that rate when there are safety measures put into place and practice.

Thank you. And I think that's good job site practice and training that if that's the case, that if that group that may feel that they're going to have rate increases say, well, if you took these actions, that would rely more safety for your employees, those rates wouldn't go up. And we wouldn't have people off the worksite. So, thank you. Thank you the good Representative for the answer. And then in Section 2, I know that Representative Farrar had, I believe, was the one that brought this up. Wage discussion by employees and benefit discussion. Is there -- And I have a pretty open business, you know, and they can discuss whatever they want and I'm sure they do. But is there -- And I'm not aware of it, but not something that people are told they can't talk about what their wages are. That's what essentially it's addressing in this is that that it makes sure that nobody is punished or penalized due to discussing wage and or benefits to other employees. Is this addressing something that I'm not aware of through you, Mr. Speaker?

Through you, Mr. Speaker, that question would be better answered by Representative Farrar.

Thank you. Through you, Mr. Speaker, glad to answer the question for the good Representative across the aisle. What I believe he's referring to is actually a current statute we passed several years ago in which we ensure that employees can make a request for their current wage information. And I believe what he is referring to is in lines 176 to 180 that says as a part of the underlying statute that any discharge discipline, discrimination against, retaliation against, or otherwise penalizing an employee who discloses or discusses the amount of such employee's wages or the wages of another employee of such employer that have been discussed voluntarily by such other employee. So, we try to make clear in this section, again, which is a part of underlying statute, to make sure that no one who is discussing that of themselves or with other employees would be penalized, through you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I remember the work that we had done on that in the past. And then, at lines 184 to 191, it looks like if the -- And I could be -- The way I'm reading is if you don't post wage and benefits in some manner that can be easily found, that you must have an open dialogue on that at the time of discussing the job at the both the wage and benefits package. So, it opens it up to not just being posted, but it can be brought up verbally in a meeting probably offering a job offer. Is that correct, through you, Mr. Speaker?

Through you, Mr. Speaker, that is correct.

Thank you. I appreciate that. I think I'm set with that section. Section 4, through you, Mr. Speaker, on the training reimbursement, that section there that if they leave -- I did hear the dialogue that took place between a ranking member and the Chair that if it's a hard good, tools or something along that line that, that you could get reimbursement for those upon departure because that's a product. Training is hard to like, "I'm going to take the training back from you. Give me the training back." You really can't do that. And I find myself unfortunately in this position in a way. I have a great employee, wonderful electrician, and I pay for them to get their final training to get the license. Because once they get that license, now I can get an apprentice to work with a trained person that has the license, but then they can leave and take that well earned license that I helped get them to. So, really not a -- Well, just a clarification. Through you, Mr. Speaker, I can't get that money back on the training I provided for them. Is that correct through you, Mr. Speaker?

Through you, Mr. Speaker, to the good Representative, that is correct. Through you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate that. And then Section 6, I think this falls -- I mean, Representative Sanchez had brought this. And I guess it was just one bad actor. I guess what I found out through the dialogue on the cannabis industry, somebody decided they could provide. If they got tips, they can reduce their raise because they think it's a -- I don't know what they were thinking. But, it doesn't -- They shall pay at least minimum wage, but they can still accept tips, through you. Is that correct, through you, Mr. Speaker, the employee?

Through you, Mr. Speaker, that is correct. Through you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And along the lines of the same question that was Section 8, again, this is another similar to the question regarding the teachers and nurses, DPW. This is regarding DPW going to a car accident. They've got to come clear the road or trees that may have been taken down. A DPW gets called in on the way and an unfortunate incident happens. They're hurt. They get into an accident. Maybe they're hurt at that, you know, transporting that this would cover them. Workman's comp would cover them responding to work related call on an emergency basis. That's correct, through you?

Through you, Mr. Speaker, to the good Representative, that is correct. Through you.

Thank you. And the follow-up to that is there's a discussion I did see that, you know, cost and CCM always come out and I get it. They want to make sure they're not reducing cost. Was there discussion regarding the amount of potential increase to the workman's comp rate to our municipalities for this addition, through you, Mr. Speaker?

Through you, Mr. Speaker, I do believe through testimony there was discussion about increase in potential costs. I do not have those numbers before me, through you.

And that would be a tough, I would guess, with depending on how many. You know, maybe you have on call employees already. You just don't know what that potential cost would be. So, it's understandable that some actuarial work would have to be done on that. In Section 8, I know that Representative Leeper was answering a question on this. I'm not sure if she's-- Through you, Mr. Speaker, the good Chair. If tenured teachers, regarding are they tenured by district in terms of -- Oh, I pause for a moment.

Thank you. And I'll start from beginning through you, Mr. Speaker. Full disclosure, my daughter is a 18-year teacher, and so when she moved from a district to another district. Is tenure for the protection in this section of Section 8 with a specific district or teaching in the state of Connecticut, through you, Mr. Speaker?

Through you, Mr. Speaker. I don't want to misspeak, but my understanding is tenured is issued by the district. Through you, Mr. Speaker.

And I do believe because you are hired by that board. But unfortunately, that, you know, she did 15 years in one. Obviously, a valuable teacher to any district, anybody who's got that many years in. And I guess that's the struggle with this one. If you end up leaving that that protection is not with you anymore, that this legislation does provide that. I do thank the good Chair of Education for that answer. And then Section 9, and I'm not going through all 75. Representative Weir is a champion. I'm not doing all 75. I'm not doing that. So, just not. But I had the property component of things. You know, when you buy a specific -- If I were to buy a specific company and my business was one of the contracts that come along with the building. Let's say that I have a landscaping company and whatever it may be. I buy a large commercial building. That building has a contract with a landscaper. I cannot provide those services to my own building until that contract is run out. Is that correct, through you, Mr. Speaker, on this legislation?

Through you, Mr. Speaker, can the good Representative repeat the question?

Yeah. I believe that the size of the building was 75,000 square feet and really in real life in terms of, you know, a commercial building, that's not enormous. I know when I went and saw the Amazon buildings and someone told me they were over 3 million square feet. I was like, "Oh." But 75 is not a great but if I had a service, my business that I'm a business owner and I'm buying a building and the job that I'm actually buying the building for, you know, let's say the landscaper, which I take care of the parking lot, I do all the outdoor landscaping, everything, but that building owner has a contract with the landscaper for that building. Am I still obligated to fulfill that obligation to that contract even though the services I provide are those, through you, Mr. Speaker?

Through you, Mr. Speaker. To the good Representative, it's a very good question. I do believe that landscaping companies would probably not be covered as they would have to be employed 16 hours per week to be covered, through you.

That is fair. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That makes sense. And I couldn't think of a company quick enough to whisk to go with that one. So, I do appreciate that. And now, the Section 18 to 20. I need to get a little bit more understanding of this because I went and was at the meeting that talked about the cranes. But I think Representative Boyd was there when I think I maybe made this comment to somebody at it that said, "What about these arborists?" And now I'm not one that wants to make sure everybody has licenses like, "I have a license to do this. You have a license to do that." But you know what? Today, today, Tim can go out and rent a bucket lift from a local rental company, and I could cut down trees. It's crazy. I literally could take my steel chainsaw, rent a 65-foot lift, jump in that lift. Now granted, it's not -- I'm my own person. So, if I fall out of the lift, so be it. But if I cut down the tree and it crushes my neighbor's House, that's not good. Through you, Mr. Speaker, what are we -- And when we talk about commercial cranes, and I have a note on here. I've gone off the Representative from the 55th that mentioned we probably see more cranes the bird than cranes the tool in the Connecticut sky. So, we need to make sure there's more cranes of the tool type in those skies. But through you, Mr. Speaker, if now arborists, maybe they are licensed crane operators. Because there's some -- You know, we had an enormous crane fall three or four years ago and clapped and and fell over, did a lot of damage in the district near me. What are we doing regarding -- I understand the training component. This is all good stuff. I mean, we want to have -- When you have these cranes up in the air, you want to have proper training for them. What are we adding? When we get rid of the exception of arborist, what are we doing with the arborist, and how are we helping them make sure that they're legal to do their work? Through you, Mr. Speaker.

Through you, Mr. Speaker. That question will be better answered by Representative Boyd. Through you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Through you, over time, these types of equipment evolve. Right? And I think we can all say within the last, you know, 10, 15, 20 years, these bucket truck or cherry pickers as they're sometimes called, have grown in that business. And as that equipment evolves, it less resembles hoisting equipment or cranes. Right? And so, we have an examining board, something I learned through this process, who is in effect the regulator and there's appointments to it and they do that as with most industry groups when it comes to licensure. And so, those cherry picker type things no longer really fall into what we would consider to be kind of the jurisdiction of a crane or hoisting examining board with a licensure piece. So, this does not specifically speak to that aspect of it, but it is more focusing on safety upgrades and licensure upgrades to what we consider to be traditional cranes and or hoisting equipment, through you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you. And I do believe that and I do thank the good gentleman, Mr. Speaker. There have been purchase of cranes when I've literally seen them take a whole tree, large tree, and lift it up over houses because it was unable to be -- And so, I do believe there should be some accountability for training on that piece. So, I thank the good gentleman for the answer. Just a comment on 44 through 47 on the utility pole piece. Listen, I have been complaining about the dual poles for since long time ago when just one utility will come in, do the electric work, replace the pole, and then you got the top of that pole is cut off. You got three quarter pole because for whatever reason, telecommunication, others would not go and then add that to the pole and clean up their work. So, I'm glad to see that in there, through you. And then, Section 48, just on, you know, the veterans poster for Department of Labor. One of the things that I want to make sure that we're doing, the posters or any posters like that. If by chance, the Department of Labor comes in and does an audit of your posters -- I have a whole hallway with all the posters and labor rates and, you know, everything's mandated in my business. They're all free. And if this is a suggestion. Department of Labor comes in and says, "Oh, you can just download it," then instead of saying, "Oh, you're going to get a fine for that. Here's your fine." How about, "Hey, let's go to your computer. And let's download that poster and get it up so that people that are veterans know what their benefits are." So, I'm hoping it's more of an educational component when they do come in and do any type of an audit for a company that they're more helpful. Well, I think that they are typically more helpful than, you know, punishing some. And then, Section 49, I'm not sure. I didn't put a note next to who that was and I think that was Rep. Boyd possibly. But through you, Mr. Chair, going through Rep. Sanchez, the good Chair, what is the need for the job classification there?

Through you, Mr. Speaker. That question would be better answered by Representative Boyd. Through you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We don't have a lot of part time employees for the state of Connecticut that fit into this category. So, if you look at, like, adjunct professors in the university system, they're accounted for through, you know, union negotiations there. You may have some other limited part time employees, but our Connecticut fire academy instructors, you know, they work during recruit classes. They are typically fire officers and firefighters and departments around the state. It's not their primary role. And how we pay them continues to be a question of where they fall into the larger state employee scheme. And so, it seemed prudent that we call it what it is. Right? They're part time instructors at the academy, so let's create a classification that truly fits what they do rather than trying to stuff them into another job classification that becomes apples and oranges. Through you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you to the good gentleman for that. And I think I skipped a section that I wanted to talk about and that was dealing with 38 pay codes. So, I think I got the answer from the Rep because I do my payroll. And I'm thinking I have regular pay. I have overtime pay. I have holiday pay, and I have -- Well, actually, I do it all now through PTO, personal time off rather than get it all quagmire. So, I think the answer was if you don't have 10 pay codes, you know, it's only the amount that you have for codes. Because I can't list 10 pay codes right now. So --

Are we good? Hey. We good? Oh, I didn't know that. I could go on for -- I guess I'm going to -- Anyways, the pay codes. If you only have four pay codes, that's all you need to disclose, I would think, through you on Section 38. Right?

Through you, Mr. Speaker, that is correct.

All right. Well, I'll wrap up because it looks like there's some things going on here that I missed. So, I did have questions on some other pay stuff, but I will allow others to get up and do whatever they're doing. So, negotiations is always good. So, Mr. Speaker, thank you for the time as always. I always thank all the collaboration that took place and answered my questions. I truly appreciate that.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I appreciate the remarks of my colleagues who have gone before me. I think our ranking member did a great job going section by section. So, I'm just going to focus on a couple of the parts of this bill that I like and a couple parts that I do not like. The first I would like to go through is Section 2 regarding the disclosure of benefits. As we know in the state, any individual already has the ability to ask their employer or their prospective employer, how much they're going to pay for the job they're applying for and what the benefits would be. And that employer is already required by state law to provide that information. So, at the end of the day, there's no legislation that is needed to force an employer to basically tip their hand to their competitor, to other employees about how much they are paying an individual in a job offering. And you might say that an employer would never have a reason to hide that information on a public posting, but when you look into it a little bit deeper, you can find instances. I mean, in one case, let's say you run a coal mining business and you need more coal miners, but the wage that you're offering new jobs at, it's just not cutting it. So, you got to raise that wage above what your current coal miners are making. Well, if all of a sudden you're now forced by the state to go blast out publicly exactly how much you're paying that new coal miner because you're in desperate need for them right now, you have to meet a new demand, you're going to cause a little bit of anger and resentment among your workers and employees, and you're being forced by the state to do that. Now, I believe that people should be transparent, of course. I believe that negotiations should carry forth in good faith. But just because I believe that does not mean that I have the right to force an employer to publicly disclose that information to their employees and also to their competitors. If I'm a competitor looking at how others are paying their employees, this makes it so much easier for me to just see exactly what they're offering and maybe out compete them. And really this just takes away the agency of our employees. It says that they're not sophisticated enough, that we don't trust them to ask the right questions, that it's too hard in a negotiation, and that we're basically just going to do their work for them and provide the -- and require the business to disclose that information. And that can actually have some negative effects on the employees as well. Let's say you're an employee, a prospective employee, and you're interviewing for a job, and your qualifications just aren't there. You really want the job, but you don't have the experience. Well, typically, you'd have the ability to negotiate and say, listen, I know I don't have the experience. I'll take a lower wage, and I'll be fine with that as long as you hire me and give me employment. But if that wage that you're willing to negotiate and work for is less than what is offered, what is required to be posted on that job offering, you could be in some serious hot water as an employer if you honor that. And it goes the other way as well. If you show up to an interview and you are this standout candidate, you blow the interviewers away, and they say, listen. We really want to get you. I know you're interviewing a couple other places, but we want you bad. We're going to offer you more benefits. We're going to offer you more pay. Are they pigeonholed into what they offered in the first place? I don't know. It seems that way here. And it follows the same theme of a lot of the things we do in this building, where we have good intentions, but create a policy that's bad in effect. And this is seen throughout this legislation. Section 4, removing promissory notes. Why remove the requirement for 26 employees under this section. If an employer, for example, wants to hire an engineering, for example, and they're going to pay $15,000 to train that engineer. And before they hire that engineer, they say, listen, I want to be able to recover my costs if you just up and leave right after you're done training, because it's only fair I spend this money training on you. I want to get a little bit out of my investment. Why would we take the ability for an employer to negotiate that away and say, nope. You're free. You sign that, or there's no agreement necessary. You get all that training. You decide to leave right afterwards. It's all good. We talk about this straw that breaks the camel's back. I see a lot of straws in this bill, and I hope they don't push us in the direction as a state we've been going because it's very concerning. There's only two sections in this bill, Mr. Speaker, that I have questions on, that are so substantive, and I think they are the worst sections in this bill. Section 9, the contractor holdover clause. And it was described very well by my ranking member that if you were a contractor in some of these areas and you buy you take over a new contract or you buy a building where service employees are working, then you have to keep somebody else's employees on your payroll as an employer for ninety days. And this follows the theme of harming one set of workers at the benefit of another. Employees of the existing service company, they get the benefit. Their employer loses the contract, but state forces the new employer to allow them to keep their jobs for 90 days. They see all the benefit. But who is injured by this? Who hurts? Well, the employees of the new contractor. Because most employers don't take a contract without any employees. They do in some cases. But you have cases where a new contractor will come in with their own employees ready to give them work, and those people have to sit on the sideline for 90 days at a minimum, and even longer, because, as you'll see, this actually requires a job offer to be made. I've never seen that. I might be wrong, but I've never seen the state of Connecticut mandating that an employer has to hire somebody, that they must give them a job offer. It's crazy. And it's very broad what we're covering here. Multifamily housing locations with 50 plus units, office buildings over 75,000 square feet, municipal office buildings, public and non-public schools, cultural centers, shopping malls and bank branches, industrial sites, pharmaceutical labs, airports, train stations, warehouses, distribution centers, independent institutions of higher ed. But I don't see the state of Connecticut included in here. So through you, Mr. Speaker, I'd like to ask a couple questions.

Through you, Mr. Speaker, why was the state of Connecticut not included as a covered entity under Section 9?

Through you, Mr. Speaker, may I have a moment?

Through you, Mr. Speaker. Could the good representative repeat his question? And if there's a line, I'm more than happy to address the concern. If there's a line associated with this question, I'd like to make sure I address that properly. Through you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I might have it a little wrong because we've had a couple changes here, and so my lines and my notes might not match up exactly where they've landed. Here I have line 732, but it might be within one or two lines there, where we list all of the covered entities here under this bill, multifamily housing locations, office buildings over 75,000 square feet. We list all the covered entities under this legislation. So, through you, Mr. Speaker, why is the state of Connecticut not a covered employer under this section?

Through you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you to the good representative for clarifying the question. I believe that state employees are already covered by the standard wage law retention provisions. So this policy would essentially have been in place for many years, and it's not new concept for the state workers. Through you.

Thank you for that answer, Mr. Speaker. And through you, Mr. Speaker, we seem to be picking a bunch of different industries here. Why did we choose this specific list of covered employers and not just include all service workers? Through you.

Through you, Mr. Speaker, the testimony and individuals have come out to our public hearings, talked about our lowest wage workers, and wanting to retain them in positions and allowing them the opportunity to prove themselves in those roles. And I think that, what we had here prior to, actually, I would say, slimming down the list of covered employees was a more broader set of professions, and we thought it best to tailor it. And, thus, we have the set of employees that we wanted to cover. Through you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I appreciate the answer, but we're doing something that we do far too often in this building, which is really creating winners and losers, saying this policy is good for some service workers but not good for others. Now I'm against the policy entirely. But at the end of the day, we should be consistent in this building. If we think this is a good idea for one, why shouldn't we make it -- think that it's a good idea for all, unless we realize that this could create some issues. That there are some industries that we don't want to bother them with this, but there's others housekeepers at an apartment complex with 50 people. We don't care if we mess with their job. Janitors at an office building. We don't care if we shake things up there. It's really disturbing that we can just pick and choose winners and losers here, and really just by state decree decide who has to deal with this and who doesn't. Now further on through the bill, we notices that an employer has to give two contractors employees that have served under the contract that they are now assuming. So, through you, Mr. Speaker, when a new contractor has to take over the old contractor's employees under this section, do they have to provide the same hours, benefits, and pay as the previous contract?

Through you, Mr. Speaker, could the representative repeat the question? Through you.

Of course, Mr. Speaker. I'd be delighted to. When an employer is assuming a contract, they're the successor contractor here, and this section is requiring that they have to assume the employees of the previous contract for 90 days. Does the successor contractor under this proposed section have to provide the same hours, benefits, and pay as the previous contract? Through you, Mr. Speaker.

Through you, Mr. Speaker, to the good representative. Thank you for that question. When a new contractor takes over, they do not have to pay the same wages and benefits. There's no requirement to eat the same compensation. As a matter of fact, it's explicit in the bill. I just have to find the language, but essentially, that is the case. They would not have to pay out those wages and benefits at the same level. Through you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And the reason I asked is purely for legislative intent. I just want to make sure that our contractors, if this were to become law, would still have the flexibility of hiring that they should have. Through you, Mr. Speaker, if an employee is fired in this 90 day used to be called a probationary period. Now I believe it's called a transition period. It's funny how we lose use our wording here. But through you, Mr. Speaker, if an employee is fired within that 90-day transitionary period, is it automatically assumed, or is there a rebuttable presumption through this legislation that firing was improper? I guess that the employer broke the law in firing them. Through you.

Through you, Mr. Speaker. I think they would certainly fall into the just cause category, and they are privy to essentially saying that they were fired for not great reasons. But, essentially, that firing would stand, and they would have to appeal. Through you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That is pretty concerning to me because our employers in the state typically have the flexibility to make decisions in the best interest of their business for themselves and for the other workers who work at that business. But at the end of the day here, an employer has to be very careful. Even if they have a perfectly justified reason for firing an employee during this probationary period, they could be opening themselves up to a significant amount of litigation. I have an employer in my district who has had some issues with a different piece of legislation, the Paid Family Medical Leave Act. And they had an employee that violate that, basically, handled their situation improperly, and there was disciplinary action, and the individual tried to sue his employer, and the attorney basically said, just settle. You'd pay me more money in attorney's fees than the settlement would be. And it's really holding our employers hostage here. If you take over a new contract, you might be getting that new contract because you bid lower, and you might have been able to bid lower because you realize with your employees, you could do the job better. You could do the job more efficiently with fewer employees, but no, you have to keep these individuals on for an extended period of time. Like I said before, this is radical. We are telling employers who they should hire. I've never seen anything like this. My good ranking member compared it to Marxism, and yes, this is socialist. This is out of the socialist playbook here. We are not saying that we trust our employers to do the right thing to hire the right people. In many cases, I believe industry is already doing this. When they assume a contract in many cases, you'd want that person with the extra experience. I get why we're doing this, but that's not our decision as the state of Connecticut. That is the decision as an employer. And I fear that this is just the beginning, that we start with service contractors and then end up saying that what's good for the goose is good for the gander. Why stop with service contractors? Why not expand to win any businesses purchased in the state of Connecticut? We don't want anybody to lose their job. No one wants to see anyone lose their job. At the end of the day, it's not our role. It's not good government to tell an employer who they can and can't hire. Through you, Mr. Speaker. There are a number of provisions regarding information that a previous contractor has to provide the successor contractor. So, through you, does the former contractor have to provide the successor contractor with disciplinary records of these employees through this section?

Through you, Mr. Speaker, may we have a moment to find that section? Thank you. Through you, Mr. Speaker, there would be no requirement to provide disciplinary records. Through you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That is another significant concern where you are now asking an employer to take on employees that they have never interviewed, never hired themselves, and they have no idea what that person's work history is like, whether or not they could be a potential danger to other employees, whether or not they're on a performance improvement plan. We go around making policy in this building and thinking that we can plan these arrangements and that we know all. But there are so many unintended consequences that can happen here, including an employer being liable for the actions of an individual who they never wanted to hire in the first place, who we are telling them by government fiat, by government mandate that they must hire that individual. That's very concerning to me. My last question on this section, through you, Mr. Speaker, have any other states implemented this policy or substantially similar policy?

Yes. Through you, Mr. Speaker, to the good representative, we have the states of New Jersey, Delaware. We also have, I believe, the District of Columbia, New York as a city, Philadelphia, and I believe California. Through you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And interesting company we're keeping there. Also, some of the least affordable places in the country to live, but that's neither here nor there. We're really breaking new ground here, it seems, in a broad sense. Only a couple other states and municipalities are doing this, but I'll move on. The other egregious section of this bill is Section 55, where contractors are responsible for the unpaid wages of a subcontractor. And this legislation holds a general contractor jointly and severally liable when a subcontractor does not pay their employees. You have a general contractor who did their due diligence, paid their employee, satisfied their end of the agreement, and they are being held responsible for the actions of someone completely separate from themselves. So through you, Mr. Speaker, if a general contractor is found jointly and severally liable in the case of wage theft by a subcontractor, would they would be required to pay double damages to the aggrieved worker?

Mr. Speaker, may I have a moment to get to this section? Thank you.

Through you, Mr. Speaker, thank you for your patience. To the good representative, no, they would not.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. But my view of our statutes, I disagree. Typically, in these cases, if it's found that wage theft occurred and that it was not just negligence, that it was intentional. So, you have a case where a subcontractor flees the state, decides not to pay their employees, and that general contractor is held jointly and severally liable for the actions of that subcontractor, then they would be held to the same standard as the subcontractor who intentionally stole wages from their employees. And when you have an intentional theft of wages per our statutes, double damages are required. So not only are we holding the general contractor liable here, but we're holding them liable for double the penalties that one might initially have thought of when looking at this bill. Mr. Speaker, the construction industry is up in arms about this. This does not encourage new construction in the state. If anything, I'd argue it hampers it. You have a situation now where a contractor may have to get additional insurance to pay out any liability created by this legislation. It makes doing business in the State of Connecticut more difficult. And when we are constantly from this building saying we want to be building more housing, we want more construction in the State, what message is this sending to contractors and developers who we want to attract? It's sending the complete opposite message, and we're piling everything on here. We have a high minimum wage, high prevailing wage, high taxes, high cost of permits and junk fees, and now we are adding joint and several liability between contractors and subcontractors. It really just seems the opposite of what we're doing here. There are things in this bill that I wholeheartedly support, and I'm wrapping up here to the good proponents, so I have no more questions. There are great things in this bill that I wholeheartedly support. We have tuition assistance for first responders, mortgage assistance for first responders, things that I have personally advocated for. Helping low-income individuals with IDD and autism find better supports to help them be able to work, and it is sick that we are putting these things in a bill together with a dozen other bills, some of which are egregious and that will have serious impacts on our business community here. We're treating our businesses over and over again in this state like piggy banks that we can continue to extract from and regulate, and hold liable in unfair situations. And I said before, when will it be one of these straws be the straw that breaks the camel's back? We tell them how to negotiate, we tell them what to pay, and now we tell them who they need to hire. We hold them liable for wage theft that they had no part in. And I always like to leave my longer soliloquies here with a quote. One from Frederick Hayek from the Austrian School of Economics that says the more the state plans, the more difficult planning becomes for the individual. At the end of the day, the more mandates that we put on, the more restrictions, the more regulations we put on our business, is going to restrict these businesses ability to do business in the state of Connecticut, And at the end of the day, that leads to fewer jobs, that leads to less opportunities, that leads to less prosperity for the worker in Connecticut. I see what we're trying to do here, but like I said, I see many straws in this bill. I hope it's not the one that breaks the camel's back. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Just a few brief comments on two sections. Through you, Mr. Speaker.

Going at section seven, the one we've been referring to is the porta-to-porta workers' comp for public work employees. Taking a look, and I know the good ranking member had discussed with the good proponent lines 497 through 509. And rather than call an amendment, I think there's agreement on the intent and the meaning of this section. And taking a look, quite frankly, just 497 to 499, it reads, if I may, Mr. Speaker, if I read the statute directly, for an employee of a public works department, when such employee is subject to an emergency calls while off duty by the terms of such employer ease employment, when responding to a direct order to appear at such employees work assignment under the circumstances in which nonessential employees are excused from working, or following two or more mandatory overtime work shifts, on consecutive days in the course. So, obviously, that second part two there or part three, that's consistent with other parts of this Connecticut general statute Section 31-275 addressing other classification of employees. Correct? Through you, Mr. Speaker?

Through you, Mr. Speaker, good representative. That is correct.

So, obviously, for legislative intent, if a public works employee is on call, for example, there's a snowstorm, so they gotta be on call. And he goes out to get propane for his own personal house, or he goes to get food or whatever, and he gets injured while doing something on his own time for his own business or his own personal needs. That's not covered by this. Isn't that correct? Through you, Mr. Speaker.

Through you, Mr. Speaker, it's a good representative. That is correct. Through you.

If, however, the employee is on call, public works employee is on call, he's on his way to do something personal, and then he's called in. We need you now. Her hustle up. Get into the work to do whatever needs to be done, and he gets hurt while doing that. That is covered under this, as I understand it through you, Mr. Speaker. Is that correct?

Through you, Mr. Speaker, that is correct. Through you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker, because I did obtain testimony from CCM with this exact concern. The CCM had submitted testimony opposing the expansion beyond when they're not only on call, but they have to be actually being called to do something for the town and municipality. So they were concerned that this could be inferred or interpreted to mean that they just had to be on call, and if they get hurt on their own time, it would be a workers' comp situation. That's not the case. Correct? Through you, Mr. Speaker?

Through you, Mr. Speaker, to the representative. That is correct.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. And to be fair, it's common sense. If somebody's even if they're on call, if they're hurt doing non-work-related activities, they shouldn't be compensated under workers' comp. Isn't that fair to say? Through you, Mr. Speaker.

Through you, Mr. Speaker, to the good representative, I believe that is fair to say.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And just the last question, real quick, in Section 54, if you're looking at lines 2611 through 2625, and particularly lines 2620, there's an obligation on the part of a state contractor to submit to the contracting agency records that have been collected on a daily basis. And the records, they contain certain things, date, and name of employee working on the job site. And in specific, in line 2620, the contractors submit records on a weekly basis, subject to a penalty. Does this mean the contractor must submit the records every seven days or submit the records for the week within a reasonable period of time after the close of that work week? Through you, Mr. Speaker.

Through you, Mr. Speaker. To the good representative, that's a great question. There isn't an obligation to file the records every seven days. The records could be and should be submitted within a reasonable period of time after the closing of the trial week, a reasonable period of time, there are a few days following the prior work week, and this was done to allow DOL -- so, essentially, DOL would not be able to review everything immediately, and the intent was to allow a reasonable grace period. Through you.

So reasonable period of time is a few days after the work week. Presumably, the Department of Labor would give some leeway. If it's four days or five days, they're not going to start instituting penalties, as long as there's an intent to try and comply. Is that fair to say? Through you, Mr. Speaker.

Through you, Mr. Speaker, that is correct.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. That's all the questions I have, and I appreciate the good proponent of the bill. I have listened to the debate as much as I can throughout the day. I must admit I'm on the fence. There's certain portions of this I truly do support. There's some that I'm a little concerned about, particularly that section seven. The good proponent made it clear that this is intended to cover only those employees, but the Department of Public Works that are actually on call and engaged in activity requiring them to work for the municipality, not simply being on call. So, with that, I think that may satisfy my concerns enough to vote for it. I'm going to continue this debate, and I appreciate it. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, so my colleagues have pointed to the fact that several bills have been put into this particular piece of legislation, which is always frustrating. As a ranking member of Public Safety and Security Committee, there's bills that I worked this year with advocates, with my counterpart, the chairman. And now that they've been jammed into a workforce development bill, I can't vote for the bills. I worked on it. But it's just how it goes sometimes. I'm not going to cry and whine about it, except I do have one question for the proponent, through you.

If you could just explain to me in Section 64 how lobsters ended up in a workforce development bill? Through you.

Through you, Mr. Speaker, I think that'll be better answered by the vice chair of environment, Rep. Bumgardner. Through you.

Thank you so much, Mr. Speaker. Through you, Mr. Speaker, to my fellow colleague, from Stonington, I would note the great privilege of representing Stonington's last remaining fishing fleet, with the good representative. And to answer his question, I would note, as far as how the sausage-making process works in this building is well above my pay grade, as far as how legislation ends up in certain pieces of legislation, especially given the fact that it is a short session. Obviously, there are many parts of this bill that reflect the work that has been done by several committees within this piece of legislation. But to, again, be specific about Section 64, this is a bill, or a section in a bill, that was heard in a bill, that was before the environment committee, this session. Through you, Mr. Speaker.

I appreciate my colleague's answer. What I heard was I have no idea. Basically, what I just heard was, I don't know, Greg. Yes. Here it is. And he point out the fact that we have the last remaining fishing fleet in the state of Connecticut. I'm very proud of the town that I represent, one of the three towns in the town I've worked in for the last 24 years. But in addition to our final fishing fleet, we also have some of the greatest restaurants in Connecticut, down in Southeast Connecticut, and specifically in our town. So this is a bill, or a section when it was its own bill, and now a section of this particular piece of legislation that, I think, is very relevant to our district. And I really want the opportunity to debate this particular section, which is true of several other sections, too. But this particular section it's really sort of outside the scope of everything else that's in it. And I'd really like the opportunity to debate this and have an independent vote on this because it is so relevant to the district that we represent. I'm a try my best to do that, Mr. Speaker. The clerk is in possession of amendment LCO 4978. I would ask the clerk to please call the amendment. I'd be allowed to leave the chamber to summarize.

House Amendment Schedule B, LCO Number 4978, offered by Representative Howard.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It's quite simple to try Section 64 out. Not because I have a shelf is allergy, but I think lobster should be debated on their own. So I'd like to see removed from this bill so we could take it up separately. I hope my colleagues will support the amendment. I asked when the vote be taken, be taken by roll. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Through, Mr. Speaker. While I understand the concerns my colleague has, I would ask that my colleagues not support the amendment. Through you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As my colleague, the cochair on the environment committee, mentioned, this did get a public hearing, and the environment committee chose not to act on it. And I see this portion of one of the bills we worked on, and we chose not to take up in this bill. I go back to thinking about Sesame Street. One of these things is not like the other, and that fits in this situation. So, we've got a lobster bill and a labor bill, but it's a bit of a quandary because we've got restaurants saying we need this. We've got fishermen saying don't do this, and we're put in the middle of it. I talked to fishermen from the good representative from Sonnington from his district. I spoke to representatives from the restaurant industry, met with them, spent time even talking to Mr. Holbrook, who used to be the head of DEP. When I tried to go as deep as I could to talk to people, find out what the right way to go is, and I'm right in the middle of it. I think it's both parties are saying, we're caught in the middle. Don't do it. Do it. I don't know who it benefits more or who it hurts more, and it just requires more research and thought, and that's why we didn't act on it. And I do support the representative's amendment because it doesn't belong here. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do stand in support of this amendment. I think that what we're going to find is that our lobster folks here that are catching legally off the shores of Connecticut and are required to catch at a certain size, the restaurants are obviously taking an opportunity to purchase outside of Connecticut. So I stand in support of this legislation, and if we would have opportunity to hear it, through the committee process and go through the regular route, it is an interesting piece to this legislation, but I do stand in support of this amendment. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, other than the fact that it's a lobster bill, I think it may be a little bit obscure for people who haven't been involved in it. So I'm just going to explain a little bit about what it actually does. Currently, we have a very small lobster fleet left in this state. It used to be immense, now it's very small. In my view, we need to do what we can to preserve what is left of our lobster fleet. There is a very big lobster fleet in Maine. And in Connecticut, the lobstermen are limited to the size of lobsters that they are allowed to catch and sell. They have to be a minimum of a certain size. They can't be smaller. They're not allowed to sell them. This bill would allow restaurants and seafood dealers to go to Maine with a truck, get a bunch of lobsters that are too small for our lobstermen to sell, and ship them back into Connecticut. What that would do is it would undercut our limited lobster fleet in both size and price. The lobstermen in this state believe that that will gravely injure what is left of our lobster fleet. Obviously, the restaurants would love to be able to buy undersized, cheap lobsters from out of state and ship them in. They could do that even if our entire lobster fleet in Connecticut disappears. They could still get these cheap undersized lobsters from Maine. We don't want that. At least, I don't want that. Now, there is a dispute clearly between the lobstermen and the restaurants. They each have an interest that seems to be opposed. We, as a legislature, are essentially being put in the middle of that, and we're being asked to pass legislation that supports one side as opposed to the other. On a bill that, in its current form, did not go through a public hearing. The first part of Section 64, which is 64 sub A, a different version of it went through the environment committee, and the environment committee chose not to advance it. The second part of Section 64, which is 64 starting online 2905, I do not believe had any public hearing. Certainly, it was not attached to the first part when it went through the environment committee. So the best thing that we can do right now as a legislature is pull this section out, get all the stakeholders together, and figure out a solution. It's possible it won't happen in this legislative session, but it would be better to do that than to choose the restaurant owners over the lobstermen for an entire year when the lobstermen are saying this will gravely injure what is left of the lobster fleet. So for that reason, we should, and I'm also told that DEEP does not support this bill, and that DEEP does not want it to go forward. So I think the best thing to do let's pull Section 64 out, get all the parties together to figure out what the best way to progress is. So I support this amendment. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I stand in opposition to the amendment. As we discussed, the impetus of this piece of legislation comes from the lobstermen, the commercial fishing industry, and there are worries about the continued decline of that industry specific to this bill poaching. My predecessor, Terry Backer, and I worked on a piece of legislation that eventually made it to the national level to ban the use of methoprene and resmethrin, pesticides that were believed to have caused or exacerbated the demise of the lobster population in Long Island Sound. That was over 10 years ago. The demise continued. Warmer waters forced the lobsters to leave Long Island Sound. I sit on the Atlantic State's marine fisheries commission, who makes the decisions about the size of the gauge of the lobsters. So Connecticut restaurants are saying, I can't buy this lobster here in the state of Connecticut because I'm in Area 6. But this size lobster up in Maine is legal. I want to be able to buy it there and bring it to Connecticut. Well, why can't you do that now? Because of the gauge size, I have to buy the larger lobster in Maine to fit what the Area 6 is here in the state of Connecticut. That means a significantly higher price. That means when we go to buy a lobster roll at a restaurant, you're paying probably double what you would pay if you were able to harvest the smaller size. Do I know what I'm saying? Is Terry on my shoulder, telling me what's wrong with you? No. I knew the man for many years, and I could pretty confidently say that if he were here, he would see the handwriting on the wall and probably ask to vote against this amendment as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I just want to rise briefly in support of the amendment before us. What I'm seeing here is we're essentially this -- they're not going to hear public hearing in its current form. It did not go through due I'm hearing some of the other speeches here in the floor that DEP isn't necessarily on board with this. I don't know the answer to that one way or the other. I would like to hear from them. I think that's important that they weigh in on this. I want to hear directly from our lobstermen. I want to hear from them as well as from our restaurant owners and hospitality industry. In order to do that, the answer is not to ramrod something through in Section 64 of this huge omnibus bill. That is not the I'm also seeing what the real catastrophic consequences could be from this, where our lobstermen in Connecticut are precluded from catching and selling a smaller-sized lobster. However, in Maine, that's not the case. If we're going to now allow smaller-sized lobsters to come into the state and be sold, that's allowed to be harvest elsewhere. I'm a Connecticut lobsterman, and I'm bound by the larger- sized lobsters. You, Mr. Speaker, in Maine, and have the smaller-sized lobster. Somebody in the hospitality restaurant industry they're buying in bulk. They're not going to go to Maine and just buy the smaller size lobster, then come back to Connecticut and necessarily buy the larger size lobster. They're going to buy it all, theoretically, up in Maine. That's what could end up happening, and our lobstermen in Connecticut could be completely shut out. That's what we're risking here. The restaurant owners aren't necessarily shopping around all these different states and cherry-picking lobsters. They're going to go in bulk, and they're going to get it done in one place. So I think we absolutely have it right here. Let's remove this section for the time being. Let's get all the principals in the room in the coming months. Let's have the conversations. Let's make sure we get all our facts together and move forward accordingly. So with that, Mr. Speaker, I encourage all colleagues to support LCO 4978. It's common sense. Let's make sure we get it right, and let's pause it for today. Thank you very much.

The House of Representatives is voting by roll. Members to the chamber. The House of Representatives is voting by roll. Members to the chamber.

House Amendment Schedule B. Total number voting 147 Necessary for adoption 74 Those voting Yea 47 Those voting Nay 100 Absent not voting 4

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm disappointed that the amendment did not pass. Now that the lobsters are still in there, I just would remind my colleagues that most of the lobsters that are caught have not yet attained the age of 25, so perhaps they should all be released. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you so much, Mr. Speaker. I think, as many of my colleagues have said today, I guess, repeating it. It appears to be that many of our bills that we contemplated in various committees have been thrown into this one huge bill. And it's the same for bills that we contemplated in the Energy Committee. We looked at the double poll issue, and I know a lot of people are probably like, what's the deal with double polls? Why do we keep talking about this? And it is an issue because these are polls that -- a new poll is started, and then you've got the old poll that's still there that may be broken. And as maybe you know or you don't know, there's a lot of lines on that pole, and everybody owns different parts of it, whether it's your energy, whether it's your telephone line, whether it's your cable line. So a lot of people utilize it. So, believe it or not, it actually took a lot of people coming together to decide how we're actually going to be dealing with these utility poles. And I think we were making really good progress in the energy committee. So I guess through you, Mr. Speaker, why was this bill taken and put into a labor bill? Through you, Mr. Speaker.

Through you, Mr. Speaker, to the good representative. I do believe that is because labor would be involved in its installation and removal. Through you.

Okay. Thank you so much. And that was my assumption because I suppose that somehow in between, if we have, like the utility that has moved one utility that has moved their wires, and the other utility doesn't come along and do it, it seems to me that there's an issue here put in this bill that other people can come in and move it for them and bill. My issue is that while it seems like it's just an easy thing to say, yes. Let's do this. We know that there are times that certain companies may take longer to change wires. Some wires might be easier than others. When you've got high voltage wires, sometimes those might be a little bit harder to move from one pole over to the other. So, I am hearing from folks that maybe there are still some issues within this bill that I don't think were necessarily contemplated, and this is what happens when you take a bill out of its committee of cognizance and moving it into another committee, and everything has kind of reverted back to what originally happened. So, I have to say, I am disappointed that this moved over. I would have rather us continue the conversation in the Energy and Tech Committee, because we had those open dialogues with the companies to understand truly what is needed to make this work and work well. And I do want it to work well, and I think everybody was on board. So, I guess for the good proponent of the bill to realize that there may be still some issues within this bill. The other thing I just want to double-check is, and this is also, you know, dealing with electricity and electricity rates. When we talk about -- this goes back to Section 9. When we talk about the service contracts that contemplated in Section 9, my understanding is that electric and gas facilities had actually been listed as part of the people that would be affected within that, and they were removed. Can you confirm that it is the intent of this legislation to not include the electric and gas facilities in this section? Through you, Mr. Speaker.

Through you, Mr. Speaker. To the good representative, that is correct. Through

Thank you so much, Mr. Speaker. And as one of my colleagues said earlier, I really don't like picking winners and losers in this. So this is a tough thing for me to say. But at the end of the day, we know, all of us know that if there are increased costs that are going to come to our electric and gas companies, guess who else is going to be paying them? Yes. That is us. So I would rather not increase costs come to our electric and gas companies as well. I have spent a lot of time today listening to this debate, and I appreciate that my good colleague has been up here answering questions, and I have no more questions for him. I know it's been a long day for him. I struggle with this, seeing how our process goes in the house in making some of these bills. I wish we were a little purer in how we saw our bills move forward. I wish they went through the committees that they're supposed to go through. I wish we were able to follow them through the process. If it were for only that reason, I may still vote for the bill, but for many other reasons that I think that this is not going to be good for the state of Connecticut, I will not be supporting. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for the second time. Am I getting cut off again? So, we've had quite a bit of dialogue, and I did stop to let the good deputy leader make some remarks. But there's one area that I'm having pause with. Again, good sections in this bill. There's a section on making sure that our employees are paid. But the one area that was added in here, and the majority of it, I'm fine with, is regarding a sign-in sheet. And one area that I did like if you're a licensed person, you actually have to make sure that your license number is there because we've had issues where people have gone on the job sites, and we've got people that are considered calling themselves plumbers, and they actually have no plumbing license, and they're just doing work, without licensure in the state of Connecticut. And so, it's good that our Department of Labor picked up on that. I think, unfortunately, we need more wage inspectors and license inspectors. I put those bills in every year. They don't seem to get through Appropriations, though. But it's lines 2632 through 2633. You got a job site, you have to sign in, that you're there to -- get whatever time. That helps obviously, I think your payroll department also that you're accurately paying your employees when they're actually on the job site for the wage that they're supposed to be paid. But failure to file the daily records required, pursuant to the subsection, is a class three misdemeanor for which employer may fine $500. I can see the fining component through you, Mr. Speaker, but not getting a record for it. But then it's also imprisonment for up to three months or both. So that seems to be pretty harsh to not file a piece of paper. Through you, Mr. Speaker, is there other areas in our legislation that you potentially can be imprisoned for not filing paperwork? Through you, Mr. Speaker.

Through you, Mr. Speaker, to the good representative. Yes. Failure to file a certified payroll record is a felony under the prevailing wage statute. And in fact, we accepted the friendly amendment from Rep Fishbein in the Judicial Committee to reduce that penalty to a Class C misdemeanor. Through you.

Thank you. I'm glad I make sure and do my payroll right then because I don't ever want to go to jail for not filing the correct paperwork. So I thank the good gentleman. I just had pause on that when I did read that, and I'm like, okay. Make sure that you're aware. One of the things that we get into is a lot of the reasons why small contractors don't get into this type of prevailing wage work is that the potential to do it wrong. And I did talk to some of our good union representatives that mentioned, listen, DOL has people right there to answer the questions for you. So if you have an opportunity, you have any questions, you can reach out to them. But I hope that the people that are well directed on job sites, they don't find themselves in a position to get a record and/or worse. So I thank the good gentleman for his answers. I appreciate that.

The House of Representatives is voting by roll. Members to the chamber. The House of Representatives is voting by roll. Members to the chamber.

I would like to be recorded in the affirmative, please.

House Bill 5003, as amended by House A: Total number voting 146 Necessary for passage 74 Those voting Yea 117 Those voting Nay 29 Absent not voting 5

On page 45, Calendar 42, substitute for Senate Bill Number 259, AN ACT CONCERNING FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION, favorable report of Judiciary.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move acceptance of the Joint Committee’s Favorable Report and passage of the bill in concurrence with the Senate.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Connecticut is one of nine states that does not have any criminal penalties for female genital mutilation. By certain estimates, about 500,000 women and girls are either at risk or have been exposed to female genital mutilation. Section one creates a new crime for female genital mutilation. It defines the criminal intent and the criminal activity necessary to have criminal liability for FGM. It is defined as a Class D felony, which carries a sentence of one to five years and a fine of up to $5,000. It also contains important exceptions that do not classify as FGM. Section two, establishes important courtroom rules for victims who do testify in criminal proceedings related to FGM. For example, upon proper motion, parties conceal the courtroom proceedings if a witness testifying is 12 years or younger in order to preserve confidentiality. There are also important standards put into place for children who are testifying at trial. Section 3 pertains to a child's competency to testify in these criminal proceedings, and important rules establishing when children can testify. Section 4 creates a private right of action, civil recourse for individuals to sue other people, other parties who engage in FGM. It gives compensatory damages as well as punitive damages against those individuals. It also contains other important evidentiary considerations and a statute of limitations for thirty years after the child turns 18 years of age. I move adoption.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the good vice chair judiciary outlined, we've heard this bill for a couple of years. It's largely supported by many stakeholders. As he stated, this is a law that Connecticut is a minority that we don't have this current legislation in place. If I could just one or two quick questions to the proponent for those of us who are not attorneys. Section 5 talks about actions pursuant to Section 4. As I understand it, Section 4 allows an individual who has been subjected to this to take action against their parents if necessary. Is that correct for you?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Through you, yes. That is correct. That section pertains only to parent-child immunity, which is an existing immunity under civil rules of procedure, that applies only to instances where the child is suing the parent under the civil private right of action. Through you.

Thank you. And just for clarification, in Section 5, it says that any action brought by a child, on behalf of the child against -- the immunity between the parent and child is abrogated. Could the good esquire explain to us what abrogated means? Through you.

To the good vice ranking member of the judiciary committee, abrogated, is another word for abolish. There is no immunity that exists. Through you.

And just for clarity, the statute of limitations in Section 6 is relevant only to the civil action. I might understand that the criminal action outlined in Section 1, being a debt, a D felony, would still be relevant to the underlying legislation or existing law relevant to similar crimes? Through you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the good vice chairs answers. As I said, this is a bill that, frankly, is long overdue in the state of Connecticut. This is a bill that is necessary to protect young women, young girls, I should say, in this case, from actions that are really difficult to even talk about. So it's a sensitive bill, but I urge my colleagues to support it and allow Connecticut to join 40 other states who already have similar legislation. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Took a second there to get my mic on. I don't have any questions for the proponent of the bill, but I do have a couple comments. Through you, Mr. Speaker. This bill has been a long time coming, at least four or five years. We've been trying to get this female genital mutilation bill passed in the state of Connecticut. I'm happy to see that it passed the Senate unanimously, 36 to zero. We've also heard that 41 other states have already passed this bill. So we're playing a little bit of catch-up here, Mr. Speaker. And it pains me to know that this practice is still legal in the state of Connecticut. Female genital mutilation causes lifelong physical and emotional damage to victims and to our communities. That damage never goes away. So, Mr. Speaker, I encourage everybody to support this bill today to do the right thing, and let's get this over the finish line. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, just have comments. Very happy to see that this piece of legislation that has been in the works for years now in this building has made it through the More than 2600 have experienced or at risk of female genital mutilation in the state of Connecticut. And this legislation is survivor-led with the hopes that it can prevent this practice from happening to any other girl in the state of Connecticut and across this country. And if we can give just one survivor a semblance of justice, I'm so proud we're going to get to do that. So I encourage all my colleagues to support this legislation. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The House of Representatives is voting by roll, members of the chamber. The House of Representatives is voting by roll, members of the chamber.

Total number voting 145 Necessary for passage 73 Those voting Yea 145 Those voting Nay 0 Absent not voting 6

On page 19, Calendar 260, substitute for House Bill Number 5226, AN ACT CONCERNING MOBILE MANUFACTURED HOMES AND MOBILE MANUFACTURED HOME PARKS. Favorable report of General Law.

Good evening. Good, sir. Good to see you this afternoon. Late early evening. Mr. Speaker, I move the Joint Committee’s Favorable Report in passage of the bill.

Thank you so much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the clerk is in possession of amendment LCO Number 4976. I ask that the clerk please call the amendment, and I can leave the chamber to summarize.

House Amendment Schedule A LCO Number 4976 offered by Representative Lemar, Representative Turco, Representative Martinez.

Thank you so much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the amendment is a strike-all amendment that reforms the protections that mobile home park owners, and mobile home park residents have, when relationship to their homes. The mobile home park units, mobile home parks themselves, are unique rental owner slash, hybrid opportunities for a number of Connecticut residents who own the physical property, their home, but are renting the land underneath said home. It's a unique category of housing that exists in our statutes. It's licensed through the Department of Consumer Protection. So exists under the general law committee's auspices. The committee has spent the last two years working closely with members on our committee to work through some unique challenges that these residents face in the parks themselves confront. These conversations have been wide-ranging and incorporated stakeholders at every level, including the owners and operators, the units, advocates, and residents. What we do is we modernize so much of the protections, the transparency, the foreclosure, the disclosure, remedies necessary for fee structures, and related expenses that may be a little bit difficult for a first- time and also a long-time resident to understand. So the bill before us makes a few key amendments. It protects vulnerable homeowners. Again, residents of mobile home parks are not typical renters. They often own their homes rent the land. Moving a manufactured home is expensive, difficult, sometimes impossible. The idea of it being mobile is a bit of a misnomer. So we increase the relocation compensation if someone is forced to move their home. We ensure transparency before signing leases. The residents oftentimes were entering agreements. They didn't fully understand the fees, the rules, the risks associated similar to like a park closure. And so we require now a plain language disclosure form to ensure that folks are making informed decisions. We strengthen some self-health and safety codes. We promote fair and consistent oversight by providing fair rent commissions, with training, on an annualized basis that is both free to the cogs and the municipalities. But will allow folks who are serving in fair rent commissions to be better informed of the unique characteristics of this type of housing unit. And so the decisions can be more consistent and evenly applied. Again, we provide a series of clear protections to residents that I think will dramatically improve the quality of life and understanding, and transparency for Mobile Park residents. And with that, Mr. Speaker, I move adoption.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would ask for a voice vote on this and move it, and I have questions after the amendment is adopted. Through you, Mr. Speaker.

Opposed? Nay. The ayes have it, and the amendment is adopted. (gavel) Will you remark further on this bill as amended? Representative Ackert.

Representative Lemar.

Representative Ackert.

Representative Lemar.

Representative Ackert.

Representative Lemar.

Representative Ackert.

Representative Lemar.

Representative Ackert.

Representative Lemar.

Representative Ackert.

Representative Lemar.

Representative Ackert.

Well, you remark further on the bill as amended? Representative Reddington-Hughes from the '66.

Representative Lemar.

Mr. Speaker, this just extends the ability that these individuals already have to access a fair rent commission. We need to make no underlying changes to the fair rent statutes. This just provides for the ability for mobile home residents to access a potential regional approach, for this. The adjudication of this process would not be modified in any way under this bill.

Through you, Mr. Speaker, to the proponent of the bill, then COG already has this fair rent commission for mobile home parks. Through you, Mr. Speaker.

Through you, Mr. Speaker. Each individual is allowed the ability to challenge or bring a rent increase to a fair rent commission. We don't change anything about that process. We allow, because of the unique nature of mobile home units, a COG to develop a process where they adjudicate the unique aspects of this under those auspices. So that's why we outlined the training mechanisms and the process by which folks can become informed about mobile home law. How it differs from a traditional rental unit. And we recognize that there were some challenges in folks not understanding when they see a fee increase, and how that relates to a traditional rental increase. Does it correlate to the fact that they own the property and are renting the land versus the fact that they, in another circumstance, would be renting a unit in a traditional apartment building? So we wanted to make sure that before we got too far field in this specific area, we're providing the relevant training and the relevant regulatory structure for any COG that wants to undertake this. We don't mandate that they have to undertake it, but if they decide to do it in this manner, they could offer this in a constructive way. Through you, Mr. Speaker.

Through you, Mr. Speaker, I would just summarize and say that, well, I understand that there is a need to investigate ways to see if something can be done so that people are certainly not misinformed, that it will be difficult to have a fair rent aspect of this, especially in towns where there may be only one mobile home park because, usually, fair rent commissions are based on units within that area that are of the same means. So I'm just bringing out some of the difficulties that may occur through you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I actually completely concur with you that there are difficulties in adjudicate. That's why we created this process by which you could educate your commissioners. You could do it on a regional scale and a regional approach, because these folks are already guaranteed a hearing before fair and commission, and we are recognizing that they may not be equipped, informed, or educated to the unique aspects of it. So that's why we did this. I think the good gentleman brings an important point, and that's why there's an underlying concern and need for this bill. Through you, Mr. Speaker.

Oh, through you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you for your answers to the questions.

Alright. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do have a few questions for the opponent of bill for you.

Representative Lemar?

Representative Jensen.

Representative Johnson.

From the front row, Representative Haines, you have the floor.

Go right ahead.

Representative Lemar.

Representative Haines.

Representative Lemar.

Representative Haines.

Will you remark further? Representative Comey from the 102.

Thank you. I have received some communications during your public testimony time. We have quite a few mobile home parks in Brantford. And I just wanted to clarify that this current amended bill, as we're talking about here today has -- we just got up and running after many years, a fair rent commission in our town. And I just wanted to make sure that we could still oversee. In fact, I had a constituent who is a part of a mobile home park, become a member of this. And I'm just wondering if they can still continue working with the parks, and there is no mandatory referral out to a COG. Thank you. Through you, sir.

Thank you very much. Mr. Speaker, the good gentleman is correct that there is no mandatory referral. This does not change the context or structure of their current fair rent commission. They will have sole and single authority to adjudicate all of the current concerns before them. All this would do in that specific instance is require their members to get occasional training, which would be free and provided by a nonprofit organization. Through you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you. Well, we do love free at the town, so thank you so much, sir. And the other part of the bill, as originally filed, was regarding rent increases and some restrictions that we were placing on that. My understanding through listening to this conversation here today is that the only thing that we are mandating as far as any sort of concerns or over, rent would be just that if there is a rent increase, they would inform the tenant of the rent 60 days out. Is that all that there is to that? Through you, sir.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Yes. And when it comes specifically to rent increases, all those must be provided and written to the tenant or the resident, at least 60 days prior to the rent increase going into effect. Through you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you so much. And just as I was reading through the bill as well, I noticed that there was several times that there's a reference to the department. Can you explain to me who the department may be? Through you, sir.