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Paid Sick Time Bill Finally Gets Past Quinn's Pro-Business Sneeze Guard
By
John Del Signore
Published Mar 29, 2013
Modified Mar 29, 2013
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By
John Del Signore
Published Mar 29, 2013
Modified Mar 29, 2013
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Three years after a proposal that would force business owners to give workers paid sick time was introduced in the City Council, Speaker Christine Quinn will finally bring the matter to a vote. Last night a compromise was reached; the original bill, spearheaded by Councilwoman Gale Brewer, would have required up to nine days paid leave at companies that employ at least ten people, or up to five days at smaller companies. The new bill would give full-time employees at companies with 20 or more workers just five paid sick days a year.
The legislation would not take effect until April 2014, and in 2015 it would be expanded to companies with 15 or more workers. Smaller exempt companies would be required to give workers' five unpaid sick days a year, and the law would formally prohibit companies from firing workers who take sick days. But if NYC's economy sags before next April, it will be cancelled altogether. And who decides if the economy is too weak for paid sick time? In a sop to conspiracy theorists, that will be determined by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Business leaders had worried that the city's Health Department would enforce the new law, but another concession would give enforcement duties to the Department of Consumer Affairs.Yet those who love forcing sick people to work still say the change will kill the local economy. (Why can't the City Council just pass a bill banning sickness? Mayor Bloomberg would definitely sign that.) "We don't support paid sick leave, period," Partnership for New York City CEO Kathryn Wylde tells Crain's.
Bloomberg has long opposed paid sick time, supposedly because of the economy, which is held afloat by hardworking deli employees who sneeze all over your pastrami. Wednesday he told reporters, "I personally think it’s best left to the employer, and you can take a job or not take a job depending on the salary and benefits that the employer offers." Yeah, nobody's forcing anyone to take a low-paying job with no paid sick time—you can choose to take it, or you can choose to be a hobo warming your frostbitten fingers by a trash can fire. America!
The Times reports that Quinn was finally pressured to work out a compromise because of her mayoral campaign:
Quinn and her aides became unsettled by the steady drumbeat of news conferences calling on her to permit a vote, and emotional appeals from unions, elected officials, and activists including the feminist Gloria Steinem. The outcry, which coincided with the official declaration of Ms. Quinn’s mayoral campaign, quickly took center stage in the mayor’s race, spilling out into contentious candidate forums and turning into an emblem of Ms. Quinn’s complicated relationship with left-leaning Democrats.
In one particularly potent tactic, advocates persuaded the usually timid members of the Council to try to circumvent Ms. Quinn and force a vote on a version of the bill that was unacceptable to her, a maneuver never tried during her tenure as speaker.
Fortunately, the issue was settled rationally without any Councilmembers' johnsons getting cut off. Bloomberg is expected to veto the measure, but there are enough votes in the City Council to override it. The Working Families Party called the compromise "a sweet victory,” but mayoral candidate and Public Advocate Bill de Blasio is holding a press conference at City Hall today to throw cold water on the compromise. He issued this statement last night:
I commend the NYC Paid Sick Days Coalition for getting something done, despite Speaker Quinn’s longstanding resistance to providing working families this critical measure of economic security. However, the final outcome leaves out over 300,000 New Yorkers and took far too long. No one should ever have to sacrifice pay just because they get sick. I intend to keep fighting for these New Yorkers left behind.
“It’s not perfect,” Sherry Leiwant, co-president of A Better Balance, an advocacy group involved in the negotiations, tells the Times. “But it’s very important to get this done in New York.
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christine quinn
paid sick time
John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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