[NathanR]

ExpressAir Delivery Systems, Costa Mesa

When the Legislature this year approved paid family leave, an ExpressAir employee walked into owner Bruce Ross' office asking to be paid for her recent maternity leave.

"I said it wasn't retroactive and doesn't take effect until 2004," Ross recalled. "She said she'd have to time her next pregnancy to take advantage of it. Everyone will take it. Why would they not?"

ExpressAir has specialized in same-day delivery of parcels and documents in Southern California for 12 years. Two years ago, the firm had 20 workers. Now it has five. Ross now contracts out most of the driving because of workers' comp rates that increased 36 percent in the past two years and will leap as much as 50 percent Jan. 1.

Ross did save $160 per truck when the state cut the vehicle license fee, but then it introduced a $1,700 user fee on commercial trucks.

After the Legislature restored overtime pay after eight hours in a day instead of after 40 hours in a week, Ross stopped allowing workers to take off for appointments or school events and make up the time later.

"It doesn't hurt me, it hurts my workers," he said.

(This is a from a different article in the same Register.)

[John Jorsett]

The employer isn't going to be the one paying the worker for the time off. Each worker is going to have a special tax deducted from his/her pay and put into some state fund, and that's where the money is going to come from on the payouts. It won't cost the employer directly (until the inevitable increase in costs due to abuse prompts the politicians to start requiring the employer to pick up the tab, for the sake of 'fairness'). There will of course be indirect costs of finding a temporary replacement, training them, and putting up with the lower productivity that a temp worker will bring.