Many of the 1.5 million New Yorkers who don’t have paid sick leave could see that change thanks to the efforts of a local politician.
City Council member Gale Brewer, who represents the Upper West Side, is the driving force behind a council effort to guarantee paid sick leave for many New York employees.
“The idea that you can’t take time off to deal with your sick kid is almost incomprehensible, yet hundreds of parents can’t do that,” Brewer said. “This is good for everybody … It’s a public health bill.”
Brewer first introduced paid sick leave legislation in the council in 2010. But the legislation is now closer to success than ever before, which Brewer credited to compromise amendments proposed in recent weeks to appease council members who have worried the bill would hurt businesses. Brewer’s current bill includes several concessions to small businesses, including a one-year grace period for new businesses to begin giving employees sick pay and an exclusion for businesses with fewer than five employees.
“We’ve been working hard to get this as good for New York as we can,” Brewer said.
The bill has 35 cosponsors in the council—enough to make it veto-proof—but is opposed by City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who decides which bills come to the council floor for debate. Quinn can decide not to allow the bill to be voted on, effectively killing it.
“In the economic environment we are in, small businesses are hanging on by a thread in many cases,” Quinn said in a statement, later adding, “Although this goal is laudable, it’s not one that I can support because I think it is one that will cost us jobs and cost us small business and their future in these tough economic times.”
Quinn said that she had not seen all of the proposed amendments to the bill. Brewer said that she has been meeting with Quinn and her staff in an effort to sway the speaker, and that she is “optimistic” Quinn will eventually allow the bill to come to the floor.
City Council member Robert Jackson, who represents parts of West Harlem, supports Brewer’s bill.
“Right now, there’s many employers who don’t even give employees sick leave,” he said. “You don’t want employees going to work sick, coughing, sneezing … They make other people sick. That we don’t want.”
“The pressure has to continue to build until there becomes a consensus,” Jackson said, adding that he “hopes” Quinn will be convinced.
Brewer said she has received widespread support for the bill.
“I know we have all the unions, we have a lot of the health care community, and they’re really, really helping us—this is a health care bill. Doctors, nurses, health care institutions,” Brewer said.
SIEU 32BJ, a union which represents building workers, doormen, and porters, is one of about 30 unions and other organizations that have formed the New York Paid Sick Leave Coalition to fight for the bill.
“Most of our members already have that but it doesn’t mean we don’t think this is the right thing for our city to do and for working people in general,” SIEU 32BJ spokesperson Matt Nerzig said.
“Labor is 100 percent behind it,” Brewer said.
Some business leaders, though, are less enthusiastic, saying the bill would destroy jobs.
“Unless the proponents have made drastic changes to the bill language, the unintended consequences will result in job loss and will be a yet another barrier in job creation,” said a statement from the 5 Boro Chamber of Commerce Coalition, which represents a number of business leaders across the city.
Brewer, though, noted that many employees on the Upper West Side already have paid sick leave, and that the bill is intended to bring those benefits to more New Yorkers.
“All the polls indicate there’s a lot of interest in this,” Brewer said. A poll from Baruch College showed that 89 percent of New Yorkers support requiring employers to give all workers at least five paid sick days per year.
Arturo Mayorga, who has been working in the city for a year and a half and does have paid sick leave, said he supported the measure.
“I would hate it if it were the other way around,” Mayorga said. “Sometimes getting sick is related to work … It’s not like I’m getting a vacation day when I’m sick. I still have to finish my projects and whatnot.”
Officer Kathy Saadi of Columbia Public Safety also has paid sick leave, as do all Columbia employees.
“It’s terrible that 1 million New Yorkers don’t get paid” when they are sick, she said. “That’s really bad.”
Saadi added, however, that she was worried some people would abuse paid sick leave.
“I think that if you get paid for sick days, then you probably won’t go in to work,” she said. At Columbia, she added, “if you are sick for more than three days, you must bring in a doctor’s note. They [businesses] should most definitely draw a line somewhere.”
Lauren Chadwick contributed reporting.
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