Early Colorado General Assembly Bills Emphasize the Protection of Employee Physical and Mental Health and Safety

Rob Thomas, Of Counsel

The Colorado General Assembly reconvened on January 10, 2024, and representatives quickly introduced new labor and employment legislation which focuses on the physical and mental health of Colorado employees in the workplace—particularly in health-care and behavioral health settings—in the form of the “Violence Prevention in Health-care Settings Act” and the “Violence Prevention in Behavioral Health Settings Act” (HB24-1066), as well as the “Concerning Suicide Prevention Education in the Workplace” bill (HB24-1015).

HB24-1015 – Suicide Prevention Education

            Introduced on January 10, 2024,[1] HB24-1015 would require the Division of Labor Standards and Statistics (the “Division”) to create and make available to employers suicide prevention education posters and notices, and such posters and notices would need to be available by no later than June 1, 2025.  If the bill is passed, the posters and notices will include an overview of multiple suicide prevention training programs, educational materials on reducing access to firearms and the safe storage of the same, suicide hotline information, and a QR code which would link to a landing page for a Division website created specifically for the prevention of workplace suicides (which the Division would also be required to create and implement).

             The bill would likewise require employers to post and disseminate these publications by no later than July 1, 2025.  Additionally, the bill would require employers to provide the DLSS’s required notice along with any employee handbook and, if the employer requires employees to sign and acknowledge its handbook, the bill would require employees to also sign a separate acknowledgment of having received the suicide prevention notice. 

            Some employers have already expressed concerns that, although not included in the bill, from a practical standpoint, HB24-1015 could open a pathway to potential litigation for Colorado employers who fail to follow the bill’s requirements but have an employee who commits or attempts to commit suicide.  

HB24-1066 – Violence Prevention in Both the Healthcare and Behavioral Health Settings

           Also introduced on January 10, 2024,[2] HB24-1066 focuses on increasing protections against workplace violence for employees in healthcare facilities (hospitals, urgent care facilities, nursing care facilities, assisted living residences, etc.) and in behavioral health facilities which provide diagnostic, therapeutic, or psychological services for behavioral health conditions.  Per the bill’s text, healthcare workers are five times more likely to experience workplace violence compared to other workers, which can take the form of verbal aggression or bullying, threats, physical violence, and assaults with objects or weapons. 

            If passed, HB24-1066 will require covered facilities to establish workplace prevention committees which will be responsible for, among other things, crafting comprehensive workplace violence prevention plans which conform to the Acts’ requirements, providing for workplace violence prevention and safety training to employees and staff at least annually, documenting all incidents of workplace violence and conducting quarterly reviews of the same, and receiving reports or complaints of workplace violence from staff, volunteers, and patients.  Healthcare and behavioral health facilities would likewise be required to submit biannual reports of workplace violence to their respective regulatory agencies. 

            Moreover, the bill would require healthcare and behavioral health employers to, at a minimum, provide employees subjected to workplace violence relief from their duties with pay until the employees’ trauma-associated symptoms are resolved, and provide any necessary acute medical and mental health treatment to any staff who are directly involved in the incident along with follow-up mental health services and supports.  The bill also expressly prohibits retaliation against any employee who reports workplace violence in good faith, assists another employee in doing so, or chooses to report or not report a workplace violence incident to law enforcement. 

            If enacted, HB24-1066 will go into effect on September 1, 2024, unless a timely referendum petition is filed for the bill to go to voters for approval in the November 2024 election. 

Employer Considerations

While both bills are in their infancy, HB24-1066 and HB24-1015 reveal an interesting focus and emphasis from Colorado legislators on the physical and mental well-being of at-risk employees in the healthcare industry and among Colorado employers at large.  The additional responsibilities and requirements which these bills would implement, if passed, would certainly impact Colorado employers, such as the additional notice posting and employee handbook requirements set forth in HB24-1015’s suicide prevention provisions, and HB24-1066’s paid time off requirements for healthcare employees affected by workplace violence.  Campbell Litigation will continue to follow these and other labor and employment bills introduced by the General Assembly in the coming months, and is available to assist with employers’ questions concerning the same.

[1]The full text of HB24-1015, as introduced, may be found here: https://leg.colorado.gov/sites/default/files/documents/2024A/bills/2024a_1015_01.pdf.

[2]The full text of HB24-1066, as introduced, may be found here: https://leg.colorado.gov/sites/default/files/documents/2024A/bills/2024a_1066_01.pdf.