The Missouri Chamber of Commerce and Industry has set its 2013 legislative priorities, which include focusing on reducing taxes and litigation and creating opportunities for workers.
“Making promises is one thing; casting votes in support of creating Missouri jobs is another thing entirely,” Missouri chamber President Daniel Mehan said in a news release. “We plan to send a clear message to the newly elected General Assembly about what it will take to spur job growth in our state and that we expect lawmakers to make good on their campaign promises.”
Tax reductionsThe Missouri chamber has thrown its support behind the Reduction of Income Tax for Employers Act, which would reduce the income tax rate for all Missouri employers.
Mehan said the legislation would give Missouri another bargaining chip, encouraging businesses to start, relocate to and stay in the state. The release pointed to recently passed legislation in border state Kansas, which the chamber believes is luring Missouri business across state lines.
“This tax relief would provide money employers could use to hire additional workers and expand. In addition, it gives Missouri a strong value proposition to companies looking to move operations to our state," Mehan said.
The chamber says Made in Missouri legislation would encourage manufacturing employers to produce items sold outside of the state in Missouri. The legislation would reduce taxes for these employers, the release said.
The chamber also supports unemployment insurance reform, reducing the tax liability of the state's system.
According to the release, the chamber will advocate for the state to pay back $569 million owed to the federal government for borrowed unemployment insurance funds, as well as greater accountability for employer taxes used for unemployment insurance.
Reducing litigationThe chamber's legislative agenda includes provisions it says would protect workers from problems in the state's workers' compensation system.
“The system, which was designed to provide an exclusive remedy so that workers could be made whole quickly and fairly, is now being chipped away by the courts,” Mehan said in the release.
The chamber says it will work to include occupational diseases under the system.
Mehan said the chamber again would pursue legislation to align Missouri's Human Rights Act with the federal law, so that the standard of proof in discrimination lawsuits matches. Gov. Jay Nixon
vetoed the legislation last year, saying it would reverse decades of civil rights progress.
Worker opportunitiesIn an effort to increase opportunities for Missouri workers, the chamber is renewing its support of provisions to save the ailing Second Injury Fund.
The release said the disability support system utilized by Missouri workers and employers has an estimated liability of approximately $1 billion.
The chamber supports legislation to limit the claims that are subject to the fund, and then, adjusting the cap to restore the fund's solvency.
Among other labor policy initiatives, the chamber is supporting a move to make Missouri a right-to-work state. Legislation would prohibit employment based on the condition that workers join and support a union.
