For at least the third year in a row, business and labor are clashing once again over paid sick days.
The controversial bill passed in only one chamber in each of the past two years, and the measure was bottled up in the state Senate last year without a vote because the chamber had been deadlocked at 18 to 18.
Passions rose during a public hearing Thursday in front of the labor and public employees committee, where bitter labor battles have been fought for years.
State Rep. Barbara Lambert, a Milford Democrat, tangled with Kia Murrell, an attorney who has been battling in the trenches on the issue for the Connecticut Business and Industry Association.
“We’ve bent over backwards,” Lambert told Murrell of various versions of the bill. “That paid sick day doesn’t seem much to someone else. … We do sympathize, and we certainly are there.”
Murrell, though, said she hears regularly from small business owners and receives e-mails from owners who are struggling to make the payroll.
“I’ve got people telling me they’ve got three mortgages on their home,” Murrell said. “There’s pain to spread around. Pain, misery, and sadness have no monopoly on a particular group of people. … Being in the middle now, you could be on the bottom tomorrow.”
Murrell conceded that the battles are heartfelt in the committee’s hearing room. “Passion flows through here unlike any other place in the building,” Murrell said.
On the bill, though, Murrell said, “At the end of the day, it doesn’t make sense. Not now. And really not ever.”
Sen. Edwin A. Gomes of Bridgeport then chimed in when Murrell and Lambert finished.
“Common sense says me and you have batted this around forever, and I shouldn’t say anything about it,” Gomes told Murrell.