By RHETA MOAZZAMI
Los Alamos

I read the referenced story (link) in the paper copy of the Los Alamos Daily Post of Thursday, March 9.

This story contains a quote by Senator Cliff Pirtle, a Roswell Republican who owns a dairy farm. Pirtle is arguing against passing a bill that would protect workers by providing them bonding time with their infants, sick leave when they’re sick, and time to deal with domestic violence, when it impacts them. He says, to justify his argument, “Most small businesses, if not almost all, treat their employees like family…”

Most caring family members, I would think, would want their family member to be able to bond with their newborn, for the good of their own family.

Most caring family members would probably not want their family member to work around customers when they are ill—for the health of their family member, as well as the health of their customers. 

Most caring family members would like their family member to be able to take the time necessary to deal with domestic violence, should it occur.

This quote of Pirtle’s brings to mind the attempts of slaveholders to justify slavery. Here’s a quote from the Seattle Times, dated as late as 2016, regarding Connecticut school officials’ decision: “A social studies textbook that says some slaves in Connecticut were cared for like family members is being pulled from fourth-grade classrooms in Norwalk.”

Let’s hope that if any laws should be based on the quote that most small businesses treat their families like family, it would be seen equally as outrageously false and remedied sooner than the next couple of hundred years. Our workers need time off when they’re sick, and we, their customers, deserve to have them home recovering, rather than endangering our health. Their infants deserve bonding time with their parents, and certainly domestic violence cannot be taken care of from a phone call from work, and domestic violence does not benefit anyone in our society.