California just made it easier for families to care for each other – by recognizing just how different each family can be. (Photo: Moogan/Flickr Creative Commons)
Before October 1st California employees could only take paid family leave for a seriously ill spouse, domestic partner, child or parent. Of course the reality is that a modern family’ often includes extended family members.
Now, California can celebrate being on the forefront of paid family leave legislation yet again: By signing SB 770 into law, California Governor Jerry Brown has expanded paid family leave coverage to include sick siblings, grandchildren, grandparents and parents-in-law.
California’s program provides up to six-weeks of partial wage replacement to workers, funded via the State Disability Insurance (SDI) system. Numerous studies show that for a vast majority of employers, paid family leave has either had a positive effect (or no noticeable effect) on business profitability, productive and employee morale.
The paid family leave expansion had broad bi-partisan support, and was backed by the Alzheimer’s Association, the American Association for the Advancement of Retired People and the California Work and Family Coalition.
“The governor signed SB 770 so that workers can care for extended family members without jeopardizing their economic well-being,” said Jim Evans, a spokesman for Brown.
It’s time for Washington legislators to set their own example and prioritize the well-being of our families by implementing and expanding our own Family Medical Leave Act this upcoming legislative session.
You can read more about our work on this policy issue and get Washington updates here.
From the left, Makini Howell, Jody Hall and Joe Fugere celebrating one year of paid sick days in Seattle.
One year after Seattle’s paid sick days law took effect, local businesses owners joined the small business group Main Street Alliance to present a new report on the economic impacts of the law.
Joe Fugere, owner of Tutta Bella Neapolitana Pizzeria; Makini Howell, owner of Plum Bistro and Jody Hall, owner of Cupcake Royale, each shared how their businesses have continued to grow and prosper – and all while providing paid sick days to their employees.
At Tutta Bella, Fugere decided to use a paid time off system that allows employees to use the time they earn for sick leave, vacation or even to go see their daughter’s violin recital. The cost for such a system? One-half of one percent of revenue. “Message to big business and lobbyist: wringing savings out of your employees is really a false profit,” said Fugere. “My support has only grown stronger because of my experience.”
Howell, who had provided employees with paid sick days even before Seattle’s law passed, noted paid sick leave only costs her about $300-$400 a year for her 35-person business. “You don’t have to bring in a specialist to redo the payroll,” Makini noted. “So no, we’re not raising the costs of cupcakes or pizza or tofu to offset that.”
Hall stated that her business has continued to expand since the paid sick days ordinance went into effect. She’ll soon be opening a new shop in Queen Anne, and plans to hire 20 new employees to keep up with growth.
The report, for which the Economic Opportunity Institute provided technical assistance, notes that Seattle’s economy showed stronger job growth and business formation in the first half of 2013 compared to the same time period in 2012: ”There were 7,200 more retail jobs and 3,200 more jobs in food services and drinking places in King County during the first seven months of 2013 than for the same period of 2012.”
The report also finds that Seattle has maintained its share of King County businesses and revenues, including in the retail and food services sectors. Further, levels of inflation in the Seattle area have fallen since last year, similar to national trends.
It confirms what many HR specialists, economists and advocates have been saying for years: paid sick days are good for workers and good for business. Seattle’s paid sick leave law means workers aren’t going to work sick and handling your food, sick kids aren’t stuck in the nurse’s office because their parent can’t leave work to pick them up and businesses are building stronger workplaces with lower turnover, higher productivity and less absenteeism.
Despite opponents’ predictions of economic doom, the sky did not fall. Seattle is enjoying a prosperous economy, healthier workers and stronger businesses. But workers outside of Seattle still have no access to paid sick days. It’s time to take action at the local and state level to pass paid sick leave laws that support working families and better our businesses.
You can review the complete report from the Main Street Alliance here.
This throwback to the Satanic mills era of industrial relations came in response to a successful petition by 50,000 voters in Orange County, Florida, to place on the ballot an initiative to guarantee a certain number of paid sick days to all workers in the county. The state bill nullifies the ballot measure by blocking local governments from enacting any standards on sick leave, voter preferences be damned.
Even sick leave laws passed by voters are being attacked. In Wisconsin, Governor Scott Walker nullified a paid sick days initiative in Milwaukee that passed with 69% voter approval. Leaders on the far-right are side-stepping the democratic process by eliminating citizen and voter rights to propose, pass and implement paid sick days standards. These bills have been quietly peddled to lawmakers by conservative business associations. In 2014 we can take power from big business and put it back where it belongs – with the public.
The GOP wants you to go to work sick
As attempts to dehumanize the workplace go, few could be more sadistic than forcing workers to come to work sick, but that’s precisely what the Florida legislature and Governor Rick Scott recently did.
This throwback to the Satanic mills era of industrial relations came in response to a successful petition by 50,000 voters in Orange County, Florida, to place on the ballot an initiative to guarantee a certain number of paid sick days to all workers in the county. The state bill nullifies the ballot measure by blocking local governments from enacting any standards on sick leave, voter preferences be damned.
Governor Scott and the state legislature did this at the behest of some of Florida’s largest employers, including Disney World, which might otherwise have suffered the inconvenience of employees being able to go to the doctor without losing their jobs. Ostensibly, legislators say it’s to maintain “uniform regulatory standards” throughout the state. But Florida legislators have never been particularly devoted to uniformity in other legal matters. This is, after all, a state that allows its counties to ban the sale of alcohol and come up with their own interpretations of the First Amendment by erecting gigantic monuments of the Ten Commandments outside of courthouses.
But when it comes to worker protections, Florida is a stickler for centralized authority, as long as that authority assures no such protections exist. The reason corporations are calling on the state to override local initiatives is precisely due to the popularity of such initiatives among voters, not just in Florida – where polls show 80% of residents support setting sick leave standards, consistent with national surveys, but also in several other states including Wisconsin, where Republican Governor Scott Walker threw out a sick leave law in Milwaukee that passed in a voter referendum by 69%. Prior to Walker’s nullification, Milwaukee was one of a growing number of cities – San Francisco, Seattle, Portland and Washington DC – and one state, Connecticut, which guarantee some number of earned sick days – typically one hour for every 30 or 40 hours worked. There is often a maximum amount set according to business size, which workers can take in case of personal or family illness without losing pay or their jobs.
New York City will likely join the list soon, with the city council set to overturn Mayor Bloomberg’s veto of its paid sick leave law. Thus in Florida and elsewhere, Republican-controlled statehouses have been scrambling to either overturn or preemptively bar such initiatives with copy-and-paste bills drafted by the American Legislative Exchange Council, which for good measure also nullify other protections that, for example, prevent workers from being fired for being gay, another issue many states feel is best left up to employers.
The fact that sick leave protections enjoy increasing public support speaks to their broader health and safety implications for consumers. Workers most often denied sick leave are concentrated in certain service industries, particularly hospitality, retail and food preparation. A survey by the advocacy group Restaurant Opportunities Centers United found 64% of food service workers have reported working while sick. One dishwasher interviewed in New York testified:
“I don’t have health insurance and I don’t get sick days. If I get sick, I take painkillers and continue working. … Once, I was washing dishes when I cut myself on a piece of broken glass. Because the water was hot, the bleeding just wouldn’t stop. It was so busy that day and I didn’t want to be sent home without pay so I kept on working.”
So far, any job-killing side effects predicted by sick leave opponents have failed to materialize. San Francisco, the first city to enact a sick leave bill, saw both employment and the number of businesses grow in the years following its implementation, while both declined in neighboring counties. And consumers seem to agree that whatever costs may be borne by businesses or passed on to them are outweighed by the benefits of not eating food that has been sneezed and bled upon. Were this not the case, there would be no need for such preemption laws in the first place.
The political football between state and local governments is unlikely to be resolved anytime soon at the federal level. Unlike every other rich country in the world, ours is a nation that prides itself on upholding the traditions of our founders by not offering things like paid vacations or maternal (or paternal) leave. And so workers groups will continue their piecemeal efforts to drag the US, city by city, into the last century, while Republican state lawmakers – the same ones who routinely restrict access to abortion in defiance of federal law, refuse to implement Obamacare and claim the right to draw up their own immigration enforcement schemes – find themselves in the awkward position of intervening against local control in the name of central government.
An old saying about consistency and hobgoblins comes to mind.
Washington Work and Family Coalition 