• Advocacy

  • Advocating for Your Business:
    Chamber Updates &

    Legislative Insights

    The Chamber is committed to being a strong voice for our business community, advocating on key issues that impact your success. This newsletter highlights our latest advocacy efforts, legislative updates, and opportunities for you to engage with policymakers, ensuring that your business interests are heard and represented at every level.

  • Click here for a testimony template that you can use to submit on a Bill.

  • Chamber Advocates for Policies that Support Businesses and Employees

    With only about eight weeks remaining in the legislative session, all but two committees of the General Assembly have considered and acted on bills that originated before them; two major committees-Appropriations and Finance-will reach their deadlines shortly. The House and Senate will then begin to meet more frequently in floor sessions to debate and pass some of the more than 650 bills approved by committee. As the legislature moves rapidly toward a June 4 adjournment, a number of bills remain on the calendar that would have a negative impact on Chamber members and harm employers, employees, small businesses and the economy.

    Here's a list of policies and brief summary of several bills before lawmakers that CRVCC is actively participating in, advocating on or monitoring:

     

    • Apprentice to journeyman ratio. Several bills supported by the Chamber would address the hiring ratio that certain trades must follow or provide relief to construction contractors. They include House Bill 6786, proposed by Rep. Jill Barry (D-Glastonbury), which would have changed the hiring ratio for skilled trades to one apprentice to one licensee. The Commerce Committee approved and referred to another committee a bill that establishes a process for contractors to hire additional apprentices. A related bill, Senate Bill 1465, allows a licensed contractor to hire one or more additional apprentices even if the contractor does not employ enough licensees to satisfy the hiring ratio under certain conditions.
    • Artificial intelligence. Several bills address the growing use of AI by businesses and employers. Senate Bill 2 requires developers of high-risk AI systems to use reasonable care to protect consumers from any known or reasonably foreseeable risks of algorithmic discrimination. CRVCC supports parts of the bill that don’t impose significant regulatory burdens, costs of compliance or liability on small businesses. Senate Bill 1484 would limit or ban an employers’ ability to monitor employee activities or communications by any means outside of direct observation.
    • Data privacy. Senate Bill 1356 expands the Connecticut Data Privacy Act by lowering the applicability threshold and including those who control or process a consumer’s sensitive data or offer a consumer’s personal data for sale in trade or commerce; and removes CTDPA exemptions, applying its requirements and restrictions to certain additional entities (e.g., nonprofit organizations). CRVCC opposes the bill and is participating in a coalition to address its concerns. Sweeping changes to laws adopted only two years ago could have significant and unintended consequences on businesses that comply with the state’s data privacy laws.
    • Noncompete agreements. Covenants not to compete or noncompete agreements would be unenforceable against employees who earn less than three times the minimum wage and independent contractors who earn less than five times the minimum wage under House Bill 7196. The bill has been approved by the Labor Committee.
    • Disclosure of wage information to applicants and employees. House Bill 6517 expands the wage disclosure law to require an employer to include a position’s wage or wage range, and a general description of the position’s benefits, in its public and internal job advertisements, if the employer does not use an alternative hiring or recruiting method.
    • Workplace safety standards to prevent heat-related illness. Senate Bill 830 establishes new safety standards for indoor and outdoor workplaces addressing exposure to heat illness, requiring periods of rest, access to cooling areas, water and shade, and additional training on heat-illness identification.
    • Unemployment benefits for striking workers. Two bills would allow striking workers involved in a labor dispute that has been continuous for 14 days to receive unemployment benefits. Both Senate Bill 8, a priority for Senate leadership strongly opposed by CRVCC, and House Bill 6904, the Labor Committee’s priority bill, also opposed by the Chamber, have been approved by committee.
    • Credit card swipe fees. Payment card networks would be prohibited from including sales and use taxes in the calculation of interchange fees on credit card transactions under Senate Bill 1460. CRVCC supports the bill, which is pending in the Finance Committee, because the fees impose a significant cost on members, small businesses and their customers.

    CRVCC urges members to contact their lawmakers about these bills, particularly ones that the Chamber has a position on.

    Additionally, CRVCC supports a legislative alert from CBIA in response to a recent Connecticut Supreme Court decision that could lead to significant increases in workers’ compensation claims costs. The March 18 decision overturned decades of legal precedent, undoing key reforms adopted in 1993 that brought long-term stability to Connecticut’s worker’s compensation system. CRVCC urges members to contact their state lawmakers and ask them to address this significant threat and protect and maintain Connecticut's sustainable, well-functioning workers’ compensation system.

     

  • Educate. Advocate. Connect!