And then there was one. During their 1999 legislative session, lawmakers in Maine enacted biweekly pay legislation, allowing businesses to pay hourly workers every two weeks. It left Rhode Island as the only state in the country that does not allow employers to pay hourly employees every two weeks.
In the waning days of the Rhode Island General Assembly’s 1999 session, biweekly pay legislation fell dormant in Senate and House labor committees.
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Biweekly pay legislation has the support of the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce, other Chambers throughout the state and many businesses, particularly manufacturers.
Proponents of the measure argue that being the only state to prohibit biweekly pay for hourly workers serves as a deterrent to economic development and unnecessarily doubles the cost of payroll for companies.
William Farrell, a lawyer with the Providence firm of Brown, Rudnick, Freed & Gesmer, is lobbying in support of the biweekly pay legislation on behalf of the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce.
”Businesses need this legislationbecause biweekly pay is an additional cost,” said Farrell. “It doubles the cost of payroll.”
And it simply sends the wrong message, he said, to large employers located across the country. When they look at Rhode Island and see that hourly workers must be paid weekly, they see it not only as an exception – but a potentially expensive inconvenience.
“That doesn’t help with economic development,” Farrell said.
Farrell made efforts last year to attempt to bring Rhode Island’s labor forces closer to an agreement. The latest bills being discussed at the State House excluded companies that are subject to collective bargaining. But despite what has been widely described as a warmer relationship in the halls of the State House between labor and business interests in recent years, those bills never made it out of committee.
Farrell does not sound overly confident that the climate has changed much at the State House during the legislative recess.
”I am very concerned about the ability to get this through,” said Farrell. “Organized labor is staunchly opposed to it.”
”Staunchly opposed” appears to be a kind way to describe the feelings of the labor camp. George Nee, secretary/treasurer of the Rhode Island AFL-CIO, said that he does not expect the biweekly pay bill to fare any better in 2000 than it did in 1999.
“I thought the year 2000 brought some sense to people, but I guess it hasn’t,” said Nee. “The millenium has not changed our opinion. This issue always gets discussed, and I don’t pre-judge what can happen. But we’re hopeful it will end up the same way it always does – dead.”
State Sen. Roger R. Badeau, D-Woonsocket, pushed hard for the biweekly pay legislation in 1999 and vows to keep up the fight during the 2000 session. In the coming weeks, he said, he will reintroduce legislation. This time, Badeau said he has a new concept that he hopes will be more palatable to the labor backers.
“They have been complaining because they feel the employee is always short a week’s pay,” said Badeau. “But there’s a way to compute it so that you are never in debt to anyone. If we pay current, there is no back pay – and in fact, the employee will get paid ahead of time. I think I can come up with something that will be palatable to the unions.”
Badeau, a retired engineer, argues that for big companies, like Fleet, double-payroll means big money.
Nee said that in his opinion, biweekly pay is “much ado about nothing.” Never, he said, has he seen a study suggesting that the biweekly pay issue have a negative impact on the state’s economic climate
“It has an infinitesimal impact on economic development,” he said.
Nee also argues that when companies suddenly shut their doors, and sometimes declare bankruptcy, the chances of employees being shorted a paycheck rise when there are two weeks between each pay period.
But Badeau said the fact that Rhode Island is the only state in the country without biweekly pay is “embarrassing.” And besides, he said, if biweekly pay represents one way to reduce the cost of doing business in Rhode Island, it should be done.
Farrell echoes that same point.
“We have enough barriers to deal with,” he said. “It’s not like the Southwest, where companies are banging down the doors to get into states.”
But Nee said there is a simpler issue at hand – involving fairness.
“People go to work every week and they expect to get paid,” said Nee. “It is not that complicated. It’s their money.”
