Paid Sick Leave Policies Continue to Face Challenges Nationwide
Unlike many industrialized countries, the United States does not require employers to provide their workers with any paid sick days. As a result, American workers are often forced to go to work when they or their children are sick, putting themselves, their families, their co-workers, and the general public in harm’s way. This problem is particularly severe among low-income workers, who are less likely to have paid vacation or personal leave that they can use when they are sick.
After San Francisco passed its paid sick leave ordinance in early 2007, paid sick leave advocates hoped that other states and localities would quickly enact paid sick leave policies of their own. While Washington D.C. now has a paid sick leave law, and California, New Jersey, and Washington have laws requiring employers to provide paid family leave, most communities’ efforts to achieve paid sick leave for their workers continue to encounter obstacles.
In 2008, a California bill that would have provided workers with paid sick leave died in committee after being approved by the state assembly. Earlier this month, New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn refused to call a vote on the proposed New York City paid sick leave bill despite the support of a supermajority in the New York City Council. The New York City bill would have required employers to provide workers with at least five sick days a year to take care of their own illnesses or the illnesses of family members. The bill would not have applied to workers who already had a week or more of paid leave. Quinn said that she could not allow the bill to pass because it “threaten[ed] the survival of small business owners.”
More recently, paid sick leave supporters in Wisconsin are holding their breath as they wait for a final decision on Milwaukee’s paid sick leave ordinance. 9to5 Milwaukee led a coalition of organizations that fought to get a paid sick leave proposal on the ballot in 2008. Milwaukee voters approved the ballot initiative by an overwhelming 70 percent. The resulting ordinance requires employers to provide employees with at least one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked by an employee, among other requirements.
The ordinance was challenged in state court by the Metropolitan Milwaukee Chamber of Commerce. Legal wrangling continued through October 2010, when the Wisconsin Supreme Court refused to issue a final decision in the case and ordered an intermediate appellate court to decide the matter—even though the appellate court had previously ruled that only Wisconsin’s highest court could decide the issue.
Notably, the trial court's reasoning for striking the ordinance down was not straightforward disapproval of paid sick leave, but based on an issue of constitutional law and statutory interpretation. The text of the Milwaukee ordinance provides that an employee can use sick leave not only for his or her illness or the illness of a family member, but also to address issues related to “domestic violence, sexual abuse, or stalking.” The full text of the proposed ordinance was published in polling places and newspapers, as required by Wisconsin statute. Notably, however, the domestic violence-related language was not included on the actual ballot. It was the absence of that language on the 2008 ballot that formed the basis of the trial court’s original ruling. Specifically, the trial court held that the ballot question was unconstitutional because it did not provide voters with sufficient information about the ordinance. The trial court also held that the sections of the ordinance relating to domestic violence were outside the scope of Milwaukee’s police powers.
The Shriver Center has been at the forefront of efforts to enact paid sick leave policies at both the state and national level. In Illinois, the Shriver Center has joined with Women Employed and other organizations to advocate for paid sick leave policies. On a national level, the Shriver Center is a member of Family Values at Work, a coalition of leaders advocating for paid sick leave and other family-friendly employment policies. Last April, Wendy Pollack, Director of the Shriver Center’s Women’s Law and Policy Project, joined the Family Values at Work coalition in Washington, D.C. to lobby for the Healthy Families Act, proposed federal legislation that would give workers up to seven paid sick days a year for themselves or to care for sick family members.
As Wendy wrote in her November-December 2008 Clearinghouse Review article, What's a Mother to Do? Women, Low-Wage Employment, and Leave Policies, “the lack of adequate sick pay puts workers in an untenable position if they get sick or need to take care of a sick child or elderly parents—stay at work when you should not or lose a day of pay, and possibly even your job, if you stay home.” Regardless of the eventual outcome in Wisconsin, the Shriver Center will continue to work with its state and national partners to ensure that American workers will one day have the paid sick leave that they need and deserve.
